Mean Boys
by sleepy-emo
Summary: I'm Haruhi Fujioka. I'm 15 years old and until recently I went to a middle school around the corner from my dad's. Now I'm starting at a brand new high school so it's goodbye normal life and hello Ouran. I can totally do this. I really can't do this...
1. Prologue

**Hey guys, me again, so the last couple of years I have been writing collections of fanfiction for NaNoWriMo and posting them as I complete them. I'm not doing that this year haha this is something that I started writing back in January (or maybe even last year I can't remember) It is a fusion of Ouran High School Host Club and Mean Girls so all our favourite quotes will be here. If I had been smart I would have started uploading this on October 3rd but I didn't. Anyway enough from me and enjoy this dumbassery**

"This is your lunch ok?" my dad told me as he handed me a lunch box. "Now," he continued when I didn't answer. "I put 200 yen in there so you can buy some milk, you can ask one of the big kids where to do that. Do you remember your phone number? I wrote it down for you just in case. Put it in your pocket I don't want you to lose it. Ok are you ready?"

"Yeah I think so." I smiled when he finally paused for breath and let me get a word in edgeways. He gazed at me with pride in his eyes before bursting into over-reactive tears and flinging his arms around my neck.

"Oh my baby Haruhi is going off to school." he sobbed, clinging to me. I rolled my eyes at his reaction but allowed him to continue rubbing his head against my shoulder like a cat. A blinding flash assaulted my retinas before a happy squeal assaulted my ear drums.

"Beautiful!" Misuzu (my dad's friend) giggled with glee as she inspected the photograph she had just taken. "I just had to get a picture of you on your first day."

"Thanks guys but I've got to go before I'm late." I told them and made a hasty escape while the two of them waved me off with dewy eyes. I rolled my eyes again and shook my head in fond affection as I began my long walk to school.

I guess it's only natural for parents to cry on their kid's first day of school. This usually happens when the kid is five though. I'm fifteen and, until today, I used to go to the middle school just around the corner from my dad's. Then I took my High School entrance exam and ended up getting a scholarship to the most prestigious school in the country.

My mother died when I was little and since then it's just been me and my dad. I know what you're thinking: a girl who just lives with her dad ends up as one of those 'Daddy's Girls' who just bat their eyelashes and get everything they want or that he's weirdly overprotective and won't let me go anywhere on my own (he is kind of overprotective but not he's not that bad). To be honest he works so much I've looked after myself pretty much since Mum died. Dad's friend Misuzu helps out sometimes but he has his own place to run and I'm perfectly capable of keeping on top of things.

The over-reactive display of affection from the both of them back there is what I have come to be used to especially when it's to do with my achievements. I'm excited to be starting my new High School but I'm also really nervous. I mean the people that I'm about to attend school with are going to be the richest, most privileged and nothing like I'm used to people that I will have ever met. They're going to have no idea what to make of me because I don't come from a rich or even well-known family. I have no idea what kind of people I'm going to be dealing with.

And so now it's goodbye normal life, hello Ouran…


	2. Being A Newbie

**So I got sick over the weekend and editing this cheered me up somewhat. Big thanks to mizzshy for helping me with ideas and fun quotes and watching the film with me. Hope you enjoy the chapter :D**

Ouran was a lot like Middle School, except that it was different in every single way I realised as I walked through the halls on the way to my first class. For one thing every single student seemed to be looking down their noses at me because I wasn't dressed in the most up to date uniform (Dad couldn't afford the regular uniform that all the other students wear so I just pieced together an old one).

Another thing was that everyone seemed to be just hanging around in the corridors or classrooms when they weren't in class. Also don't even get me started on the halls – they're like mazes, I mean this place is huge! You could easily fit my house in here about fifty times over and still have room left to spare! Not to mention the map that I was given on registration wasn't exactly helpful either seeing as it said 'You Are Here' but didn't actually specify where 'Here' was.

I was so glad when I finally found my form room. There were students just milling around sitting on the desks and talking to each other with no teacher in sight. I took a deep breath. If there wasn't a teacher then I should probably find the Class President and introduce myself to them. I looked around till I spotted a girl with a badge pinned onto her uniform. It could have just been some kind of accessory but Ouran seemed like the kind of place that would only let you wear something like that if you were the Class President. I made me way over to her and cleared my throat.

"Hi," I smiled as she turned to me, a bored expression on her face. "I don't know if anyone told you about me; I'm Fujioka Haruhi, I'm the new scholarship student." The girl looked me up and down and I saw the sneer at my out-dated uniform.

"Talk to me again," she said, her voice dripping with derision and false sweetness. "and I'll make sure my father, the school doctor, has you sterilised."

"Message received." I replied cheerily as I backed away as hurriedly as I could. Wow if that's what the Class President is like I'd hate to see how the rest of the student body says hello.

I decided that I would just wait till the teacher arrived before I tried introducing myself to anyone else. I turned away from the psychotic President and went to find a seat. A couple of desks away from me I saw a pair of twins, both with flaming red hair and golden eyes, failing to hide their laughter while looking in my direction, evidently they had just seen my first attempt at introducing myself. I went to pull out a chair next to a well-built girl who wasn't paying any attention to me when one of the twins hailed my attention.

"You don't want to sit there." he stated. "Hamasaki Kaneko's boyfriend is going to sit there." I opened my mouth to answer when a spindly boy slipped into the seat I had been about to take.

"Hey baby." the girl smirked at him when he sat down before she grabbed the back of his head and pulled him into a ferocious kiss. I let out a surprised gasp at this unprecedented display of affection and turned to find another seat. I was about to pull out the chair on a desk behind a larger boy when the twins caught my attention again. One of them was shaking his head while the other was gesturing 'no' with his hand.

"I wouldn't." the one who had spoken the first time said. "He farts a lot." I didn't know whether that was true or not and I wasn't sure I wanted to find out so I looked around for another seat. There was one empty seat left and it was next to the twins. I wasn't about to argue too much so I began to make my way over there.

As I weaved round the desks at the front of the class I was only focusing on getting to that last free seat before someone else got in there first and I wasn't looking where I was going. Before I realised what was happening I had walked straight into someone. As I did I knocked the papers they had been holding out of their hand and they scattered all over the floor.

"Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry." I gushed as I hastily began trying to clear up the mess I had made. The person (who upon closer inspection I realised must be the class teacher) smiled at me and shook his head.

"It's fine," he said grinning. "it's not your fault, I wasn't looking where I was going either."

"Is everything ok in here Mr Norbury?" a voice asked from the doorway. I turned to see a very pretty woman poking her head around the door. Mr Norbury flushed slightly as he saw her, took the papers from me and began hurriedly arranging his desk in an attempt to seem as if he was in control.

"Hi Miss Duval." he grinned but it was a little too wide to be real. "Yeah everything's fine in here, everything ok with you?"

"Oh yes," Miss Duval said brightly. "I just wanted to come and introduce myself to each of the classes." She turned to the class and beamed at everyone. "I'm your new Headmistress: Miss Duval. Like Mr Norbury here I am from America on a teaching exchange program and we'll be here for the next year at the very least."

"I hadn't gotten around to telling them that yet." Mr Norbury said, his blush deepening.

"We also have a new student joining us this year." Miss Duval continued as if Mr Norbury hadn't spoken. "They are a scholarship student and are joining us from a local Middle School." Mr Norbury looked frantically around the room, presumably searching for me, before his gaze fell on one of the less well dressed students.

"Welcome." he beamed. The boy surveyed him with a raised eyebrow.

"My father's an attorney." he stated snippily, the tone suggesting that he didn't want to be associated with scholarships.

"Great." Mr Norbury replied grimacing uncomfortably at his mistake.

"Fujioka Haruhi?" Miss Duval asked trying to take the spotlight off this exchange. I raised my hand a little awkwardly as I was still standing at the front of the class.

"That's me." I smiled at her. Miss Duval smiled back.

"Wonderful, welcome to Ouran." she said before leaning close to me. "Did I pronounce that right? Fujioka?" she asked.

"Yeah." I replied. I could feel my face heating up and I pretty sure I could also hear those twins sniggering behind me.

"That's good." she beamed. "I have a nephew named Anfernee and I know how mad he gets when I call him Anthony…almost as mad as I get when I think about the fact that my sister named him Anfernee."

"Right…" I said slowly nodding my head. I was pretty certain those twins were sniggering now as the laughter was getting louder.

"Well," Miss Duval beamed. "thank you everyone and enjoy your first day back. She nodded at Mr Norbury who flushed and cleared his throat before she left the classroom.

"Well, welcome Mr Fujioka," Mr Norbury smiled (the first person to mistake me for a boy because of my hair and clothes – I'm not going to correct him). "if you could take a seat then we can begin."

"Yes Sir." I hurriedly took the available seat next to the twins who gave me identical cat like grins before turning to the front of the class. I sighed silently – this was going to be interesting.

The rest of the first day of school was like a blur; a stressful surreal blur. The vast majority of the other people in my classes seemed not to try because they all came from ridiculously wealthy families that they could use to get a job as soon as the graduated (yay nepotism). They were also really stuck up; because of the way that I was dressed none of them would give me the time of day because I 'looked poor and it might rub off on them'.

By lunch time it was all starting to get to me a bit so I ended up founding a deserted music room on the third floor and ate my lunch on my own. I sighed; I had lots of friends in middle school, so far none at Ouran. I wondered what my mother would make of it all. I imagined going home to her and Dad and having them ask me how school had gone, telling them it was awful and Mum cheering me up while Dad made something nice for dinner. That was probably still what was going to happen but with Misuzu and I had absolutely no idea how I was going to answer them.


	3. Two Friends For The Price Of One

**Oh my god internet access that isn't on a phone! Chilling with mizzshy at my grandad's caravan watching some films! Sadly this is not one of them so have some dumbness and enjoy :D**

"Did you go to Ouran Middle School before coming here?" one of the twins asked me almost as soon as I had sat down the next morning.

"No." I replied shaking my head. I would have thought that would have been obvious from the introduction yesterday and that I was still wearing the old uniform but I wasn't going to question it.

"It's just you really look like the guy who played Mark Cohen in Rent." he told me.

"Wasn't me, sorry." I replied shaking my head again.

"Thank god!" he sighed theatrically placing a hand on his chest. "He had pitch problems." I laughed. From beside him his brother rolled his eyes.

"This is Kaoru; he's almost too gay to function." he stated. His brother, Kaoru, simply grinned as if to confirm that that was true. The other opened his mouth again, presumably to introduce himself, when a well-built boy (who was probably a member of one of the sports teams) walked passed, making sure to hit him in the back of the head with his book-bag.

"Nice wig Hitachiin what's it made of?" he sneered as he passed.

"Your mother's chest hair." he shot back, glaring maliciously at him before turning back to me and grinning. "I'm Hikaru." he introduced himself.

"Hi." I smiled at both of them.

"So you're the genius scholarship student?" Kaoru asked with a cat like grin.

"I wouldn't say that exactly." I mumbled, my ears heating up.

"Let's see your timetable." Hikaru said reaching over and grabbing the piece of paper on top of my desk that contained my timetable. His eyes scanned it as Kaoru looked over his shoulder with curious interest.

"First period: Health, Room G14." Kaoru read aloud. He and Hikaru shared at look that seemed to me as if they were plotting something.

"I think that's in the back building." Hikaru stated smirking conspiratorially at Kaoru.

"Yeah, that's in the back building." he agreed, wearing an identical smirk. "We can take you there if you want." I should have said no. Considering that the two of them were looking at each other in a way that made me feel very uneasy I should have said no but sometimes I don't always make sensible decisions. I still had no idea how to get around this school and if there was an entire other building then I would definitely need some help getting to it.

"Thanks that would be great." I said against my better judgement.

* * *

"Watch out please, new meat coming through!" Kaoru called loudly as he and Hikaru barrelled me down the crowded corridor, pushing the other students out of the way. Almost as soon as the bell had rung for the first class they had grabbed me and begun frogmarching me out of the classroom and off to find the back building.

"You're taking Second Year Law?" Hikaru asked, still fully engrossed in my timetable.

"Yeah." I replied feeling the heat creeping up my neck that I always got when I was put on the spot again.

"Eww, why?" Kaoru asked grimacing at the thought as we stepped out into the grounds that lead onto the acres (yes that's right; acres) that were the sports courts.

"My mother was a lawyer," I replied shrugging. "and ever since she died I wanted to follow in her footsteps."

"That's beautiful." Kaoru breathed. He turned to Hikaru. "This guy is deep." Hikaru raised an eyebrow at him before sitting down on a solitary bench that overlooked the running tracks. Kaoru joined him while I stood looking around in confusion – I thought they were supposed to be showing me to my first class.

"Um where's the back building?" I asked once it became apparent that the two of them weren't moving.

"It burnt down in 1987." Hikaru grinned reaching into his book-bag and pulling out a notebook.

"Won't we get in trouble for this?" I asked as Kaoru grabbed my hand and pulled me down onto the bench between the two of them.

"Only if you show up late." he stated. "If you don't show up at all they'll never notice."

"Besides why would we get you in trouble?" Hikaru asked looking up briefly from his notebook. "We're your friends."

I knew that I shouldn't be missing class on my first day of school but I wasn't exactly in a position to turn down friends either and despite the fact that Hikaru and Kaoru just permanently looked like they were scheming something they were the first two people who had spoken to me without complete contempt. Also, I rationalised, this was to be the one and only Health lesson I ever had to attend and I was new so I highly doubted they even had me on the registers yet. I guess I'll never know what I missed (probably something about not having sex or getting pregnant).

"So have you joined any clubs yet?" Kaoru asked.

"Not yet." I admitted. "I probably should, I haven't really had much of a chance to socialise with people yet."

"Oh you'll get socialised alright, a little slice like you." Kaoru smirked.

"What are you talking about?" I asked confused.

"If you lost the glasses you'd be a regular hottie for the school fan-girls to coo over." Hikaru chuckled humourlessly, this time not even bothering to look up from his notebook.

"I had contact lenses but I lost them on the way to school yesterday and haven't gotten around to getting more yet." I explained. "Do you get a lot of fan-girls then?" I was incredibly confused now (what kind of school had I come to?)

"Oh yeah." Kaoru continued to smirk. "You wouldn't believe how many of them are into the whole twin thing either." I opened my mouth to ask what he meant, feeling incredibly naïve, when Hikaru looked up from beside me.

"How do you spell your name again?"

"F-U-J-I-O-K-A." I told him. He looked at me, a deadly serious expression on his face.

"Yeah, I'm just going to call you Haruhi." he stated.

"Fair enough." I shrugged. I wasn't particularly bothered as I was on a first name basis with both of them, I didn't mind if they called me by mine.

"For the love of all that is holy will you look at Haninozuka's gym clothes?" Kaoru cackled looking over towards the sports field. I turned to look in the direction that he was pointing in and saw a class filing out onto the field. The person that Kaoru meant was obvious almost immediately: he was shorter than everyone else, so much so that he looked like he should still be in middle school. He was wearing the tightest gym shirt I had ever seen and a pair of shorts that practically had butt-cheeks falling out of it.

"Does he wear those or floss with them?" I asked chuckling. Hikaru looked over as the rest of the class filed on to the field and rolled his eyes.

"Of course The Hosts are all in the same gym class." he snorted in disgust.

"I heard Ootori had his father pull some strings so that he could be in a third year class and only take one more year of it." Kaoru stated.

"Really?" Hiakru scoffed. "What a dick."

"Sorry, who are The Hosts?" I asked.

"They're practically royalty at this school." Hikaru stated.

"How so?" I asked.

"They're pretty much pseudo celebrities." he clarified.

"Why?" I asked again. I didn't understand how this group of people, whoever they were, could be that popular with the rest of the student body. "What's so special about them?"

"Ok think of it this way," Kaoru chipped in. "if Ouran was like Vogue or something then they would always be on the cover."

"That one over there," Kaoru pointed out. "that's Mitsukuni Haninozuka; one of the dumbest boys you will ever meet." Hikaru said smirking as the boy they were talking about failed to catch a ball passed to him by flailing before it reached him and getting hit square in the chest with it. "Kaoru sat next to him in Study Hall."

"He asked me how to write Neko." Kaoru confirmed.

"Oh wow!" was pretty much all I could say to that. That was… impressively stupid, unless he was actually some kind of comic genius and people didn't realise that he was joking, although that seemed incredibly unlikely.

"The tall one who's just joined him," Hikaru continued pointing to the tall, dark haired one now standing behind the short one. Compared to him the first boy looked absolutely tiny. "is his cousin, Takashi Morinozuka."

"You hardly ever see one without the other," Kaoru stated. "kind of like us." he added turning to Hikaru, who simply grunted and pretended not to hear him, continuing with what he was scribbling down in the notebook. I looked back over at the two boys out on the field to see that they were joined by another. This was a little shorter than the one named Takashi and he also had dark hair like Takashi's, he also wore a pair of stylish looking glasses that glinted in the sunlight.

"Who's he?" I asked. Both Hikaru and Kaoru looked round to see the third boy and Hikaru glared. You could practically feel the waves of hatred coming off him.

"That's Kyoya Ootori." Kaoru said calmly but he seemed much less bright than he had been.

"Who's Kyoya Ootori?" I asked.

"Evil takes a human form in Kyoya Ootori." Hikaru growled. I looked over to where he was standing and studied him with a raised eyebrow. There was a small group of adoring girls standing around the three of them and Kyoya seemed to be regarding them all with a cool and calculated disinterest. He seemed a bit of an aloof and moody bastard but not like Hikaru's exaggeration but any stretch.

"Really?" I asked incredulously.

"Oh don't be fooled." Hikaru replied. "Kyoya may seem like your typical selfish, back-stabbing, dick-faced, wanker but in reality he is so much more than that."

"He's the big star of the three of them." Kaoru stated. "The other two are just like his entourage."

"What?" I asked. Who on earth had an entourage at school.

"He always looks sharp." Kaoru said. "He always wins the Prince of the Fair."

"The what?"

"The Prince of the Fair." he said again.

"Who cares?" Hikaru asked grumpily.

"I care!" Kaoru snapped back before turning to me. "Every year Ouran throws a fair for students and parents. Whoever is elected Prince and Princess of the Fair automatically become the presidents of the Student Activities Committee. Since we are active members of the Student Activities Committee, regardless of whether you are interested or not, I would say; yes, I care."

"Wow Kaoru you've truly out-gayed yourself this time." Hikaru said sarcastically, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. Kaoru just responded by pulling a childish face.

"So what is this guy actually like?" I asked after a pause.

"How do I even begin to explain Kyoya Ootori?" Hikaru said shaking his head, still glaring in Kyoya's direction.

"Did you say Kyoya Ootori?" a girl's voice asked from behind us. I turned and saw a gaggle of about five girls and a couple of boys.

"Um…yeah." I replied.

"Kyoya Ootori is flawless." the first girl said, her eyes practically sparkling.

"He has two chauffeurs that drive him everywhere and he has a silver Lexus." another of the girls said.

"I hear his glasses are insured for five million Yen." one of the boys said. Damn, how much money does this guy have?

"I hear he does car commercials in the US." another girl said. I highly doubt that's true.

"His family has a private beach in Kyoto." another said. That probably is true.

"One time he met Leonard Di'Caprio on a plane and he told him he was cool." the final girl said with the same expression of wide eyed awe that the rest of them wore. The only one who had yet to speak (the other of the boys) leaned in close to me, his eyes even brighter than all of the rest of them.

"One time he shoved me into a locker." he told me. "It was awesome." he added after a pause. What on earth is this guy like in person? From the sound of it I think he's the kind of guy I'd going to try and avoid.


	4. Saved By The Hosts

**Just what you need on your Tuesday: more dumbassery :D hope you enjoy**

I wandered into the school cafeteria a couple of hours later, a map that Hikaru had been drawing while we had been sitting out by the sports field clutched in my hand. Pretty much as soon as Kyoya's fan club had disappeared Hikaru had torn a page out of the notebook that he had been scribbling in and handed it to me. It was a map of the school (a much more informative one than the one I had been given upon arrival) with 'Haruhi's Guide to Ouran' written in the top left-hand corner.

Both he and Kaoru had stated very firmly that where people sat in the cafeteria was incredibly crucial as everyone was there. To be perfectly honest I wasn't particularly fussed about where I sat – I could quite happily have gone back to that music room and ate there – but they insisted that I should go and eat lunch with them. Hikaru had drawn a complete layout of the cafeteria, complete with who sat on each of the different tables, which he had also marked out perfectly.

The first table that I came to had the words 'Second Years' written in block capitals. I looked up at the table and it was filled with girls and boys who I vaguely recognised from the year above. I looked back at the map; the next table said 'Sports Players' and, sure enough, the people sitting around it all had some kind of sporting equipment with them. I kept looking from the map to the tables and each of Hikaru's descriptions matched those of who was sitting there.

After the first two tables there was the 'Nerds' (most of whom had some kind of text book open in front of them, the 'Otakus' (mostly boys sitting around either playing some kind of card game with dice or reading manga), the 'Unfriendly Princesses And Their Slaves' (a table filled with grumpy looking girls being waited on by simpering boys), the 'Girls Who Eat Their Feelings' (a group of larger girls, which I thought was insensitive), the 'Girls Who Don't Eat Anything' (the polar opposite of the previous table) and the 'Sexually Active Band Geeks' (a group with musical instrument cases engaged in passionate kisses, one of whom seemed to have his hand up the skirt of one of the other girls).

The final two tables were labelled 'The Greatest People You Will Ever Meet…', I looked up at the table in question and saw Hikaru and Kaoru, Kaoru waving enthusiastically at me, '…And The Worst'. Just above this Hiakru had hurriedly scrawled 'BEWARE THE HOSTS!' I looked over at the table in question and saw the three boys that Hikaru had pointed out on the field earlier. I had absolutely no interest in sitting with them so began to weave my way through the students mingling around, making a bee-line for the table where Hikaru and Kaoru were sitting.

Just as I was passing the table where the Hosts were sitting, a girl, standing a couple of inches shorter than me with long dark-blonde hair, popped up in front of me. She was holding a clip-board, I noticed, as she gave me what she imagined was a radiant smile but just came off as worrying and I gave her an awkward smile back.

"Hi," she said brightly. "I'm doing a survey of new students do you have time to answer a couple of questions?"

"Um… ok." I replied but she didn't seem to hear me, she was too busy looking at her clip-board.

"Is your cherry blossom popped?" she asked.

"Excuse me?" I asked in return. I assuming that statement was supposed to make some kind of sense that I didn't understand. Again she didn't seem to hear me but turned back to her clip-board.

"Would you like us to assign someone to pop your cherry blossom for you?" she asked.

"Um…" I hedged uncomfortably, desperate to get out of this conversation.

"Is she bothering you?" a cool voice said from beside us. I turned to see Kyoya, the other two sitting either side of him, looking at us with cold disdain. "Renge are you causing trouble again?"

"I'm just being friendly." the girl, Renge, protested grinning.

"Renge three days ago you were all over Mori here and now you're trying it on with some poor innocent boy right in front of us." he said waspishly. "He's not interested. Do you want to have sex with her?" he added turning to bring me into the conversation. I shook my head vehemently.

"No thank you." I replied hurriedly.

"Good, that's settled," Kyoya gave her a calculated smile. "you can run along now Renge." Regne muttered something under her breath that sounded like an insult meant for Kyoya, but dutifully weaved round me and left. I turned and gave Kyoya a grateful smile.

"Thank you." I bowed slightly then made to go and join Hikaru and Kaoru as I had planned.

"Wait," Kyoya raised a hand to stop me. "sit down." He indicated the chair opposite him.

"Um…" I turned to look over at Hikaru and Kaoru. Kaoru was enthusiastically waving me over while Hikaru mouthed 'what are you doing' at me.

"Seriously sit down." Kyoya said again.

"Ok." I shot an apologetic shrug in the twin's direction before taking the seat Kyoya was offering.

"I'm Kyoya," he introduced himself. "this is Mori and Honey" he added indicating the two on either side of him.

"I'm Fujioka Haruhi." I replied. I decided to give him my full name considering that they are my upper-classmen after all and should keep some sense of propriety.

"So you're the scholarship student, aren't you?" Kyoya stated after studying me for a minute or two.

"How did you know?" I asked. I was amazed at how quickly the news of my arrival at the school had actually travelled.

"Word travels fast at Ouran," he replied. "and I have my ways of finding out the most interesting information." That sounds vaguely ominous. Still I thought I should probably be polite and make conversation.

"Well yes I am the scholarship student." I smiled.

"You're incredibly gifted." he stated. I wasn't totally sure if it was a compliment or not so I decided to take it as one.

"Thank you." I replied.

"So you agree?" Kyoya asked coolly. "You think you're incredibly gifted."

"Um…" I had no idea how to respond to that, he had just completely twisted what I had said. "well I…"

"So that uniform?" Kyoya interrupted me before I could actually finish my sentence. "Where did you get it from?"

"It's one of the old ones, isn't it?" Mori asked.

"Um, yes," I replied a little embarrassed. "my father wasn't able to afford one of the most recent ones. If I hadn't got the scholarship he wouldn't have been able to afford the tuition fees."

"So if you're at Ouran," the little one, Honey, piped up suddenly, looking confused. "why are you poor?" I opened my mouth to answer, although not sure how I was going to respond, before Mori cut me off.

"Mitsukuni you can't just ask people why they're poor." he admonished.

"I just want to know how he's able to come to school here." Honey half whined, pouting.

"That's kind of how scholarships work." I said trying to sound as polite as I possibly could. Is he really a third year? I wondered. The twins had said that the class we had seen them in was a third year one so I guess he must be. They had also said he was a complete idiot so I wasn't holding out much hope for him.

"You should know that we don't do this a lot so this is quite a big deal," Kyoya cut in before Honey could say anything else. "but would you like to have lunch with us for the rest of the week?"

"Oh that's very kind of you but I…" I began about to try to make some kind of excuse to get out of it but Kyoya didn't seem to be listening to anything beyond 'that's very kind of you'.

"Wonderful." he said with that same calculating smile he had given Renge. "We'll see you here tomorrow." Honey leaned towards me, beaming at me.

"On Wednesday's we were pink roses." he stated happily. It was then that I noticed that each of them had a red rose tucked into one of the buttons on their blazers.

"But I…" I began to protest again but the three of them had already begun discussing something else. Do people just not hear me when I talk?

* * *

"Oh my god! That's hilarious; you have to do it ok." Hikaru chocked between fits of laughter once I'd finished retelling him and Kaoru what had happened to me at the Host's table. As soon as I'd left the cafeteria the twins had grabbed me and practically frog marched me to the boy's bathroom. No one seemed that bothered that I was in there but so far I hadn't met anyone who hadn't mistaken me for a boy. "Then you have to tell us all of the horrific and stupid things they say."

"Why do you hate them so much?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" Hikaru asked as if the question was a surprising one.

"Kyoya and the others," I clarified. "you seem to really hate them."

"Yes, what's your point?" Hikaru asked flatly.

"Did they do something to offend you?" I asked. I was having trouble working out why Hikaru seemed to have such a vendetta against Kyoya without some kind of reason behind it.

"Everything they do offends me." he stated matter of factly. From his position over by the sink where he had been fiddling with his hair I saw Kaoru roll his eyes.

"Hikaru's just pissy about them because Kyoya started this rumour that the two of us were…"

"Kaoru!" Hikaru snapped cutting him off. "Shall we not?" Kaoru just rolled his eyes again and continued fiddling with his hair.

"Whatever you say." he muttered. I looked between the two of them. Clearly something had happened between the three of them in the past that Hikaru was quite sensitive about it.

"So there is a reason you hate him?" I asked. I didn't really want to press the issue (partially because I didn't completely care – this was not the kind of thing I needed to be wasting my time on).

"Oh there totally is." Kaoru grinned at me.

"Look, this isn't about hating him ok." Hikaru cut in hurriedly. "I just think it would be like a fun little experiment; a psychological experiment if you would prefer."

"What would I even talk to them about?" I asked. I mean what on earth would I possibly have in common with boys like that?

"Family status." Hikaru offered.

"Because I have so much of that." I muttered darkly.

"Class gossip." Kaoru shrugged.

"I don't know anyone!" I protested.

"Can you just do it, please?" Hikaru asked.

"But I…" I began but tailed off as they two of them looked at me expectantly. I sighed, there wasn't any way that I was going to get out of this so I might as well just agree to it. "Oh fine!"

"Yes!" Hikaru exclaimed, thrusting his fist in the air with glee and Kaoru grinned while continuing to fiddle with his hair. I sighed again; does anyone at the school listen to me?


	5. Confusion Thy Name Is Haruhi

**I am so glad it's Friday this week has just been getting weirder and weirder. Well at least I'm not the only one confused... enjoy haha**

By the end of the day I was exhausted. Coupled with the twins and the Hosts I was so glad to get to my second year Law class and be free from all of them. I like Law, I'm good at Law, nothing could mess me up in Law class. Or so I thought…

"Excuse me, could I possibly borrow a pencil, I seem to have lost mine?" the boy in front of me asked.

"Sure I think I have a spare somewhere…" I began confidently as I routed through my pencil case. I tailed off as I looked up to hand it to him. He was blond, with soft violet eyes and a stunning smile. I'd never really noticed boys before now but this one hit me like a sledgehammer. He was absolutely gorgeous and I was sure that I was staring at him but I couldn't help myself and I couldn't seem to look away, especially not when he smiled at me as he took the pencil.

"Thank you very much." he said. I felt my face heat up and immediately looked down at my notes. When I thought it was safe to case a sneaky glance at the back of his head I looked back up again. My eyes met his and he smiled again. My face was practically on fire as I looked back down at my notes again and tried to pay attention to what Mr Norbury was saying, all the while marvelling in the fact that he had been looking at me.

* * *

That evening when I finally got home Mizuzu and Dad were waiting for me again. I saw them waving at me out of the window as I rounded the corner and I smiled to myself. I privately wondered if they were going to do this every single night I came home – it was very sweet but they both had work to do, they couldn't be worrying about me all the time.

"I'm home!" I called as I closed the door behind me a couple of minutes later.

"Welcome home!" they both called happily as they arrived at the door.

"How was your second day?" Dad asked.

"Fine." I replied.

"Were people nice?" Mizuzu asked.

"Not really." I replied after a moment's thought.

"Oh," Dad said a little dejected. "did you at least make some friends?"

"Yeah." I nodded. "I've got some homework to do so do you mind if I get dinner started?" I asked before they could bombard me with any more questions and made my way into the kitchen to start cooking.

* * *

The next day in the canteen I sat with Mori and Honey while we all waited for Kyoya to arrive. As I listened to the pair of them I realised the having lunch with the Hosts was like leaving the actual world and entering this strange and bizarre world that revolved around nepotism, social status and academic success. Apparently in this world whomever you socialised with was everything.

"So Haruhi is there anyone else you've spoken to outside of your form class?" Mori asked me.

"Sort of." I replied. "I mean I leant a pencil to the guy who sits in front of me in my second year Law class."

"There are a lot of big names in the second year classes." Honey said. "They're all really hard to spell." I wasn't totally sure if he had realised what he had just said but he just turned back to his lunch so I thought it best to ignore him.

"So who was it?" Mori asked after a pause.

"Tamaki Suoh." I replied. As soon as the words were out of my mouth I realised that that may have been the wrong thing to say as both Honey and Mori looked up at me, horrified.

"No!" Mori exclaimed.

"No! No! No!" Honey added shaking his head.

"You can't talk to Tamaki Suoh!" Mori stated still looking horrified.

"Why not?" I asked a little affronted. I can talk to whoever I want to.

"Tamaki and Kyoya used to be best friends when they were in first year," Mori explained. "and then they had a huge fight over the summer holiday because Tamaki stole Kyoya's girlfriend." That seems kind of petty, I thought, but then again considering the conversations I had heard since I arrived at this school 'petty' seemed to be the deal of the day.

"Hang on," Honey piped up. "I thought Tamaki found out Kyoya was sleeping with his girlfriend."

"That's not the point." Mori stated.

"I don't know what he got so bent out of shape for," Honey stated his attention primarily focused on his dessert. "they were only sleeping, it's not like they were having sex or anything."

"Um Honey-Sempai…" I began but Mori shook his head to stop me.

"Regardless," he said cutting me off. "we'll just pretend this conversation never happened okay? It will be our little secret."

"Sure." I shrugged. I still had no idea why everyone thought I cared so much about all this drama that I had inadvertently stumbled into. It was at that moment that Kyoya arrived, later than he had planned, from his last class.

"What are you three talking about?" he asked scrutinising each of us. Mori looked at me and I just stared from him, to Kyoya to the mouthful of food I had been about to eat.

"Um... apartheid?" I offered with a slight shrug. No idea where that came from.

"It's wrong." Mori nodded. Kyoya looked between the two of us and I'm sure that we couldn't have looked any guiltier if we had tried. I still maintain that I had nothing to feel guilty about though.

"Whatever." Kyoya stated finally, shaking his head. "They're serving American food today; I'm getting cheese fries."

* * *

Law was slowly becoming my least stressful class. I had decided to just play along and not talk to Tamaki unless he spoke to me. It would make my life a lot easier when it came to Kyoya (he seemed like the type who would easily turn on you if you ticked him off) but I wasn't going to be impolite if Tamaki spoke to me. I could still admire the back of his head though – he did have a very nice back of the head. I was lost in thoughts of Tamaki when the girl who had accosted me in the cafeteria in front of Kyoya and the Hosts appeared in front of me.

"Hey Cherry-Blossom." she smiled cheekily.

"Hi." I replied warily. She laughed softly.

"Look I'm sorry about yesterday." she replied. "Let me introduce myself properly. I'm Renge Houshakuji."

"I'm…" I began.

"I know who you are Mr Scholarship," Renge grinned wickedly, cutting me off. Well that was hardly surprising; everyone else seemed to know everything about me. "I'm the President of Ouran's Debating Club," she told me. "We participate in debate challenges against other high schools and we'd get twice as much funding with a boy as cute as you on the team. You should think about joining."

"Oh, you'd be perfect for it, Fujioka." Mr Norbury, who had been tidying some books away and clearly been listening in, said. "You have the knowledge for it and it will be great on your resume – especially if you win."

"I'll think about it." I smiled politely. It sounded like it might be quite fun and if it would look good on a resume for law school then I might as well give it a go.

"Let me give you my card." Renge smiled handing me a small business card with her name and what looked like a small drawing of two shirtless boys kissing. "Let me know soon because we'd like to get jackets."

"Ok." I replied nodding. Renge turned to leave but turned back at the last second and winked at me.

"See you around Cherry-Blossom." she all but purred and left the room. I stood there staring after her for a couple of minutes before shaking myself out of my stupor. I certainly hope that isn't a nickname that's going to stick.


	6. Starting Today You Are A Host

**Had my last bout of physio this morning and my hand is pretty much back to normal. So at least one thing is. Everything is a little bit crazy at the moment so I hope if you read this it's gives you some enjoyment. Love to you all 3**

"Get in loser we're going to my house!" Kyoya's voice shouted at me as I walked out of the school gate at the end of the day. I turned to see him leaning out of the back seat window of a shiny silver car. I could also vaguely see the silhouettes of Honey and Mori sitting with him and a bored looking (probably long suffering) driver in the front. A part of me wanted to just leave and go home but the look that he was giving me suggested that I didn't really have much of a choice. I guess Kyoya and the others liked having me as a pet or something because before I knew it I was in back seat of the car on the way to his house.

"So how do you like Ouran Haru-Chan?" Honey asked.

"It's good thank you Honey-Sempai." I replied. "I'm thinking of joining the Debating Club." I added offhandedly. No sooner where the worst out of my mouth when Honey and Mori exchanged looks of abject horror, while Kyoya let out a derisive snort of laughter.

"Why on earth would you want to join the Debating Club?" he asked. "It's social suicide."

"How so?" I asked. There were so many rules that these guys were trying to get me to follow – it was getting kind of annoying really and very hard to keep track of.

"Nobody respects people on the Debating Club." Kyoya stated. "Everyone gives them a hard time, even the Otakus make fun of them."

"You are so lucky to have us." Honey said smiling widely. I still wasn't totally sure whether he was actually a calculating mastermind or he really was as stupid as everyone said he was and by this point I was too afraid to ask.

After about ten minutes, most of which I sat in silence unless the conversation was directed at me, while Mori, Kyoya and Honey conversed around me the car slowly came to a stop. The driver came round a few seconds later and opened the door. Kyoya stepped out and as I got out of the car all I could do was stare up in absolute awe at the mansion in front of me. This place was huge! I was pretty sure that my entire house could fit into just one of the rooms.

I followed the three of them up the front steps – them striding before me like this was the most normal thing in the world (which I guess for them it was) – all the while glancing all around me. I was amazed and start-struck by the sheer immensity of Kyoya's house and I wanted to drink in the entire site of it. I did have to remember to look where I was going on occasion because if I walked into something and broke it there was every chance I would be paying for it for the rest of my damn life.

"Kyoya-Sempai," I said, my voice coming out as more of a breathless whisper, as we came to an ornate set of stairs. "your house is beautiful."

"I know." Kyoya smirked as he gave his book-bag to a butler and continuing further inside. "I'm home!" he called out.

"Welcome home!" a female voice sang. A few seconds later an elegantly dressed older woman (who I assumed was Kyoya's mother) appeared and the top of the stairs and began her decent.

"Make sure you check out his mother's boob job," Mori whispered to me after the butler had taken my book bag, not without some reluctance on my part though. "they're hard as rocks."

"Hello Kyoya!" his mother greeted him in that sing-song voice again and embraced him.

"Hello Mother." he offered his own greeting but it was much more stoic and with no affection at all in his voice, his entire body stiff as a board as she hugged him. I couldn't imagine not returning affection from either of my parents, especially not my mother if she was still alive.

"You've brought Mori and Honey with you!" his mother beamed as she saw the other two and then her eyes fell on me and her face practically lit up. "And who is this?" she asked making her way over to me.

"This is Haruhi," Kyoya introduced me. "he's a scholarship student."

"Well, well, well," Kyoya's mother said grinning at me, her hands on my shoulders and holding me at arm's length so she could study me. "brains and good looks; you must be fighting the ladies off."

"Something like that." I muttered in embarrassment. "You have a lovely home." I said a little louder.

"Thank you so much." she beamed at me. "You're welcome to come here any time you want." She then drew me towards her and hugged me tightly. As she pressed her chest up against mine I could feel that Mori wasn't wrong – her breasts really were hard as rocks. It was quite a painful hug and I understood why Kyoya looked so uncomfortable when she had previously hugged him. I think I managed to keep my face from showing any discomfort though.

"Thank you Mrs Ootori." I smiled once she had released me, fighting the urge to rub my chest where her breasts had practically cut into me.

"And I just want you to know Haruhi," she said very seriously, placing her hands on my shoulders again. "that if you need anything, don't be shy and just ask okay? There are no rules here: I'm not like a regular mother, I'm a cool mother. Right Kyoya?"

"Please stop talking." Kyoya replied flatly. I was getting very good at hiding how horrified I was by the way Kyoya spoke to people and I just about managed to conceal the disgust I had for the way he spoke to his mother. I guess he thinks because he has so much money he can get away with talking to people as if he was better than them – how the other half live I guess. I would never even dream of speaking to my parents like that. Kyoya's mother seemed completely unperturbed by it and signalled for a butler with a try of drinks to come over.

"Well don't forget that here Happy Hour is from four to six so drink up." she beamed, clapping her hands together as the butler handed each of us a brightly coloured drink. I looked round and saw the others happily drinking so I took a tentative sip. It was a sickeningly sweet drink with hints of cherry, orange and something else that I couldn't quite place. I looked over at Kyoya's mother, my brows furrowed.

"Um," I began tentatively. "is there alcohol in this?"

"Oh god, honey no!" she exclaimed placing a hand on her chest in utter horror. "What kind of mother do you think I am?" She paused for a moment before leaning in close to me so that she was practically whispering into my ear. "Why do you want some? Because if you're going to drink I'd much prefer you did it in the house."

"I'm fine thank you." I said hurriedly before she could hail the butler over to get me some.

"We're going up to my room." Kyoya announced and began to climb the starts.

"Well you boys have fun." his mother called as the rest of us began to follow him up. "Call if you need anything."

"Thank you Mrs Ootori." I turned and smiled at her. She beamed back at me and she seemed genuinely happy to hear that for a change.

"No problem sweetheart." she replied. "I love you all so much." I smiled at her again before continuing on up the stairs after Kyoya and the others.

Once we reached the landing Kyoya pushed open a door that lead to what I assumed was his bedroom but could actually have fit the supermarket at the end of my road in it. Without a word he strode over to his wardrobe and opened it up. Inside was more clothes than I had ever seen in my entire life and I watched as Kyoya routed through them until he stopped and pulled out an Ouran uniform just like the ones that they all had on. He handed it to me.

"Put this on." he told me. I hesitated. I don't know if he expected me to just change right here in front of them all.

"Um do you have a bathroom near here?" I asked shyly. Kyoya raised an eyebrow at me.

"You can just change here, you loser." he told me. I could do, I thought, but I kind of didn't want to because of the whole not actually being a boy thing. It wasn't exactly that I wanted to keep the fact that I'm a girl a secret because I don't actually care whether they see me as a boy or a girl but I still wasn't comfortable changing in front of them.

"Because I have to pee?" I offered with a slight shrug. It was an excuse. Kyoya rolled his eyes and nodded to a door in the corner of his room.

"There's a bathroom through there." he told me and I practically darted for the door. I sighed with relief as I locked the door behind me and quickly began to change. Coming into this world of the Hosts is so stressful. I had just finished buttoning up the trousers when there was a knock at the door. I opened it slightly and Honey's hand appeared holding a small contact lens container.

"Put these in Haru-Chan." he told me. "Kyo-Chan said they should be the right prescription." I took the container from him privately wondering how on earth Kyoya had managed to get hold of my prescription. I finished changing, put the contact lenses in and flattened my hair, which I hadn't realised was sticking up as much as it had been and left the bathroom.

"How do I look?" I asked when I opened the door. Honey exclaimed in delight and clapped his hands, Mori seemed happy with the change as well while Kyoya looked me up and down, smirking.

"Congratulations," he said smoothly. "you officially look like a Host now."

"Cool." I replied shortly but politely. I wasn't totally sure how I felt about that but on the other hand it might be nice not to have people at school staring at me because of my out dated uniform.

"Hey Kyo-Chan," Honey suddenly exclaimed picking up a book with the Ouran school crest on the front with the words 'Burn Book' written on it in large, black block capitals. "I didn't you know you still had this."

"Oh the 'Burn Book'," Kyoya smirked, taking it from Honey. "I haven't looked at this in years."

"Burn Book?" I asked. Mori nodded.

"We cut out all the pictures from Year Books of people in the school and wrote comments." he said. That doesn't sound horrific but knowing what I do, especially about Kyoya all these comments are probably horrible. Honey, who had been flicking through the book opened it on a double page spread of one of the boys sports teams, and handed it to me. I wasn't wrong: these comments were awful.

"Nemoto Saionji is a whipped little biatch?" I read out looking at Honey in disgusted amazement.

"Still true." Kyoya laughed.

"Shimedzu Tadamichi is a fat virgin?" I read. These were just getting worse and worse.

"Still half true." Kyoya smirked. I didn't want to know which half. I flipped through a couple more pages of the book. These were really horrible! My aim was now not to end up in this book (although I probably would by the end of the year). By the looks of things whoever got commented on in here was through no fault of their own. Except maybe this guy:

"Kawasaki Shusake masturbates with a frozen hotdog?" I asked. How would he even… on second thoughts I really don't want to know. I flipped over the next page and saw a picture of Hikaru and Kaoru. Kyoya snorted derisively.

"Hikaru Hitachiin: incest freak." he spat.

"I don't even remember what the other one is called." Mori stated imitating Kyoya's mocking tone.

"That's Kaoru," I said without thinking. "he's almost too gay to function."

"That's funny." Kyoya smirked. "Put that in there." Before I could protest Honey took the book from me, took out a large felt-tip pen and began to write. That's not good. That's probably only okay when Hikaru says it. Once he had finished Honey passed both the book and the pen to me.

"Do you want to do one?" he asked.

"I'd really rather not." I replied.

"Why?" Kyoya asked sceptically. "It's only a bit of fun."

"Yeah no one's going to see it." Mori agreed.

"I don't want to." I said again.

"Just write something." Kyoya said coolly.

"Okay then." I said quietly as Honey stuck a picture of Mr Norbury on the blank page in front of me. I stared at the picture – I really didn't want to write anything but I didn't think I got much of a say in whether I did or not so I panicked and scrawled the first thing that came to mind next to his picture. God damn it Peer Pressure I thought I was better than this. When I was done Mori looked over my shoulder.

"'I keep Ecstasy in my desk.'" he read.

"That's funny." Kyoya said, smirking. "Is that true?" I just shrugged in response.


	7. The Pitfalls Of The Three-Way Call

**So this is turning out to be a fun week - two ten hour shifts and today was particularly bad but editing this has certainly cheered me up, hope you all enjoy it too**

"And they have this book where they've written lots of nasty comments about a load of the boys in our school." I told Hikaru the following evening. I had spent most of the evening at Kyoya's then the next day at school the twins had asked if I wanted to go shopping with them after the day was over. I had a suspicious feeling it was partially so that Hikaru could grill me about being with Kyoya, after my trip to 'Host Land' but it was nice to be spending time with them.

"What does it say about us?" he asked crossing his arms over his chest and narrowing his eyes.

"You weren't in it." I lied.

"Those dicks." he muttered darkly.

"Will this minimise my pours?" Kaoru asked popping out from behind a display of various skin-care products and other stuff that middle aged women pay extortionate prices for. Hikaru took the bottle and gave it a cursory glance.

"No, that's for feet." he said before turning back to me. "Haruhi you've got to steal that book."

"What? No."

"Oh come on!" he exclaimed. "You do and we can publish it then everyone can see what an axe-wound he really is."

"No!" I said again. "I don't steal from people… even people like Kyoya." It's true I had seen a nasty side to Kyoya while at his house but I had caved into Peer Pressure once already this week, I didn't want to make a habit of it. While Hikaru and I had been talking Kaoru had been playing around, spraying Hikaru with various different hair conditioners. Hikaru turned to him.

"Will you stop that?" he snapped before turning back to me again. "Listen Haruhi there are two kinds of evil people in this world: people who do evil stuff – like Kyoya... and like, Hitler – and people who see evil stuff being done and don't do anything to stop it."

"Does that mean I'm morally obliged to burn that couple in the matching outfits?" Kaoru asked pointing over to our left. I turned to look but Hikaru grabbed my chin and turned my face back so I was looking at him again.

"If you can get that close to Kyoya Ootori that he already has you dressed like one of them then you have a responsibility to mess with him." he said. I moved my chin out of his grip.

"I'll observe that's all." I told him firmly. He snorted derisively.

"Fine, let me know when you've grown some balls." he said. I just raised an eyebrow at him. Clearly he still thought I was actually a boy and I couldn't be bothered to correct him as he was talking about metaphorical balls in this instance. Before I could say anything though an exclamation from Kaoru made us both look round.

"Oh my god!"

"What?" Hiakru asked as we both turned to see.

"That's Mr Norbury and Miss Duval!" he exclaimed pointing at the couple in matching outfits. As it turned out they weren't matching outfits they were just wearing the same colour, which was a small mercy really. Kaoru's exclamation had, however, alerted them to the fact that we were standing there watching them and they made their way over to us.

"Hi guys," Mr Norbury said grinning at us. "how's it going?"

"It's good." Hikaru said although it was clear from his tone that he was very uncomfortable being in this conversation.

"Doing a bit of shopping?" Kaoru asked cheerily. Obviously he wasn't as uncomfortable.

"Yeah," Miss Duval said. "it's date night on Saturday so we were looking for some edible massage oil."

"Sorry?" I asked, not totally sure I had heard that right. I don't know if teachers are allowed to say stuff like that to students even if it is outside of school hours. Both Hikaru and Kaoru looked uncomfortable now. Mr Norbury laughed loudly.

"We're kidding." he said. "You know sometimes older people like to make jokes."

"Our Great Aunt takes her wig off when she's drunk." Kaoru stated.

"Your Great Aunt and I have that in common." Miss Duval said seriously. Mr Norbury turned to me.

"You know Haruhi I really hope you do join the debate team." he said. "It would be great to have someone new on the team… you know so that the rest of the team could meet someone new."

"Sure thing." I smiled. "It sounds like fun."

"You can't join the debate team!" Kaoru said hurriedly. "It's social suicide!" Mr Norbury sighed.

"Thanks for that." he said. Kaoru shrugged apologetically.

"Well," Miss Duval said breaking the short silence that followed. "this has been sufficiently awkward, we'll see you guys later."

"See you tomorrow." Mr Norbury said over his shoulder as they left. We sent a chorus of 'bye' after them then waited until they were out of sight.

"I love seeing teachers outside of school." Kaoru stated. "It's like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs."

"It's creepy." Hiakru said flatly before turning to me. "So when are you going to see Kyoya again?"

"I'm not." I replied. "I'm not going to spy on him anymore, it's weird."

"Oh come on!" Hikaru whined. "It's not as if he's ever going to find out."

"You realise this is how sociopaths start out." I said but he ignored me.

"Come on, it will be like our little secret."

* * *

I was at home, alone, studying later that night when the phone rang. I figured that it was just Dad calling me to tell me that he would be working late so I didn't think too much of it when I picked it up.

"Hello?"

"I know your secret." Kyoya's voice said. I almost dropped the phone in surprise. Firstly how did he get my phone number and secondly how did he know about what Hikaru was planning. Okay, calm down, you don't actually know that that's what he's talking about so play it cool and pretend you have no idea what he's on about. Plausible deniability – what can go wrong?

"Sorry what are you talking about?" I asked.

"Mori told me that you've been talking to Tamaki." Kyoya said. I let out a breath of relief. God, I had thought it was something important.

"And?" I asked.

"You know me and him used to be friends, right?" Kyoya asked as if that would sway my decision to be nice to one of my classmates.

"Mori-Sempai did mention it in passing." I said. I was going to play this plausible deniability to the hilt.

"I don't care, do whatever you want but let me tell you something about Tamaki." Kyoya said. "All he ever talks about is his mother, his dog and France."

"Why France?" I asked. That out of those three options seemed the most random.

"But if you're content to put up with that then I'm not going to stop you." Kyoya said.

"O…k." I replied. He said it like if he had had a huge problem with it then I would have stopped talking to him. This guy is kind of deluded.

"But aren't you really angry at Mori for telling me?" Kyoya asked. I furrowed my brow even though I knew he couldn't see me. This conversation was just getting weirder and weirder by the minute.

"About what?" I asked.

"About you talking to Tamaki." Kyoya stated.

"Not really," I replied. "We have classes together, it's hardly a huge secret."

"Yeah but to go behind your back like that," Kyoya said. "don't you think it was a bit of a dick move?"

"I guess it was kind of a dick move, I don't know." I replied shrugging, again even though I knew he couldn't see me.

"You can tell me if you are mad." Kyoya said in a tone that sounded like sweetness. Was he recording this call to play to Mori later?

"I'm fine, really." I said again and then without thinking I continued. "I guess he's just kind of immature like that."

"See Mori I told you he wouldn't be mad at you." Kyoya said brightly.

"I can't believe you think I'm immature!" Mori's voice cried from what I assumed was another line before it clicked and I heard the dial tone.

"What…" I began but Kyoya cut me off.

"See you tomorrow." he said in that same overly bright tone before hanging up.

I stood there with the phone pressed against my ear, just listening to the dial tone, for a good couple of minutes trying to process what the hell had just happened before I gave up. I put the phone down and slumped against the wall, completely drained. I had survived my first three-way calling attack and it wasn't actually as bad as I had thought it was going to be. It did, however, leave me with one burning question: how did either of them get my home phone number in the first place?

 **Ouran: where your classmates can get easy access to your personal information... apparently**


	8. Dressing Up And Dressing Down

**And this is how we party at Ouran, enjoy :D**

Not that I was trying to or anything (or that the fact that Kyoya seemed okay about it made any difference) but I started talking to Tamaki more. Nothing massive just polite conversation while we were waiting for the teacher to arrive. Like on October 3rd he asked me what day it was. It wasn't until a few days before Halloween and everyone was leaving class that we had an actual proper conversation.

"So," he said falling into step with me as I left the room. "why are you dressed like a boy?" I stopped and turned to stare at him, amazed. The first person who hadn't thought I was a boy since I got here. He noticed my shocked expression and then began apologising profusely. "I'm sorry was I not supposed to say that." I started to laugh and he looked even more confused.

"It's fine." I said through my laughter. "I just wasn't expecting it. You're the first person who has looked at me and hasn't defaulted to 'boy'."

"So why are you dressed like one?" he asked grinning at me.

"It's a long story involving uniforms and I didn't really care enough to make a huge deal over it." I shrugged.

"Well the uniform looks good on you." he stated looking me up and down. I could feel my cheeks heating up slightly. God damn me and my hormones.

"Thanks."

"So, um, I'm having a Halloween party this Saturday." Tamaki told me. "Nothing too ostentatious and flashy…"

"Really?" I asked pretending to be confused. "But this is Ouran surely ostentatious and flashy are a given when it comes to parties." Tamaki laughed.

"Touché." he said. "Seriously though it's this Saturday, here's my address." He handed me a small card with his address printed on it. "it would be great if you could come."

"Sure thing." I said. Normally I wouldn't but seeing as it was Tamaki who was asking I could take a break from studying for one night and it wouldn't hurt, right?

"You can even come dressed as a girl if you want." he teased.

"I'll bear that in mind."

"It is a costume party and people around here tend to get pretty into it." he said.

"I'll see what I can dig up." I grinned.

"It will be nice to see you outside of school." he said.

"You too." I replied.

"Oh and it's invite only so don't go bringing some other guy with you." he said smiling at me. I smiled back, nodding.

"Grool." I said and instantly cringed at how ridiculous that must have sounded. Why did he have to be so damn attractive that I couldn't even form simple words? "I meant to say 'great' and then started to say 'cool' and ended up with a weird amalgamation of the two." Tamaki laughed.

"Well 'grool' I'll see you then." he said before leaving, turning to gave me a small wave. I waved back, clutching my books to my chest with the other hand in the hope that they might slow down my heart rate or something. I'm going to have to find a costume now…

* * *

So as I was always given to understand Halloween consisted of children dressing up in scary (or supposedly scary) costumes and going and knocking on strangers' doors begging for sweets. Not so at Ouran. At an Ouran party Halloween seemed to be the one night a year where people could dress as over the top posh princess, snooty rich bastard or as slutty as they liked and no one could say anything about it.

As I stepped through the doors into Tamaki's house and looked around at some of the other guests I noticed that most of the hard-core girls just wore lingerie and some kind of animal ears. I had gone for the more traditional approach and something that still made me look fairy androgynous. Having said that I thought that it was a pretty clever costume all in all.

I found Honey and Mori pretty quickly (meaning Kyoya couldn't have been too far behind) and, my lord, I was not prepared for Honey's costume. Tiny shorts where his backside was practically hanging out, an insanely tight fitting t-shirt and rabbit ears. When he saw me he bounded happily over to me.

"Haru-chan!" he said, wrapping his arms around my waist. "You made it!"

"Hi Honey-Sempai." I smiled at him. Despite the fact that he looked like a perverts wet dream (and I'm pretty sure he was wearing make-up too) he did have this wonderful ability to make me smile.

"Hey Haruhi." Mori said appearing behind Honey after he had detached himself from me.

"Hey Mori-Sempai." I gave him a smile too. I looked Mori up and down in mild confusion. He seemed to be wearing one of those all over body suits that usually makes you look creepy with no face but the head had been cut off at the neck. He was also wearing a pointed nose with whiskers coming out of the end and some very small, very fluffy ears. "Um Mori-Sempai," I asked tentatively, not wishing to offend. "what have you come dressed as?"

"He's a mouse," Honey chipped in. "duh!" He said it as if it was obvious but I suppose the nose should have been a giveaway.

"So," Mori said giving me a nudge. "seen any pretty girls you like? We could arrange something if you're interested." I raised my hand to stop him in his tracks before that train of conversation got out of hand.

"I'm okay, thank you." I told him.

"You know who's looking fine tonight?" Honey piped up looking over at a crowd of first year girls all in very skimpy outfits. "Hanako Morinozuka."

"Okay you did not just say that." Mori said turning to him with a look of pure disgust on his face and I think I could guess why.

"What?" Honey asked. "She's a good kisser."

"She's your cousin," Mori said slowly, spelling it out. "and my sister!"

"Yeah but she's my first cousin." Honey said as if that made it alright. "See you're my cousin, Hanako is my first cousin because she's younger and then…" He tailed off as he seemed to really think through what he was saying. "Wait that's not right."

"So wrong…" Mori said shaking his head.

"Well," I said in an attempt to diffuse the tension and awkwardness that that conversation had created. "I'm going to go and find something to drink, I'll see you guys later."

I began to weave my way through the crowd hoping to either find a kitchen or somewhere a little quieter. As I rounded a corner I ended up walking smack bang into Tamaki. One of the drinks he was carrying ended up spilling over me slightly and he began apologising profusely. I reassured him that everything was fine and as he heard my voice he looked up at me and beamed.

"You made it." he said before immediately going back to apologising. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to completely soak you. I'm usually a lot more graceful than that. Is everything alright."

"It's fine." I laughed rubbing the bottom of my jacket. I didn't think it would leave a stain but I'm pretty good at getting stuff like that out and it was a very old jacket. "Nothing ruined." Tamaki stopped and looked me up and down.

"So what are you supposed to be, if you don't mind me asking?" he added on the end as if not wanting to cause offence. I will admit my costume was a little obscure. As I said I had gone for the traditional idea of being scary but have limited supplies to work with for costume I found some very cheep devil horns from the market and one of my Dad's very old suits that fit me with some tweaking and a battered old suitcase I had patched up slightly to look like a briefcase.

"Divorce lawyer." I said. Tamaki laughed.

"Love it." he grinned. We looked at each other for a moment and I could feel myself blushing. Why did I have to find him so cute? Especially now when he looked like he really wanted to say something but was working up the nerve to. "So listen Haruhi…" he began.

Unfortunately whatever Tamaki had been about to say was cut off by someone bumping into him from behind. He was pushed into me, spilling more of the drinks he was holding down my front. He turn and I looked over his shoulder to see Kyoya standing behind him, wearing a devil costume, and pretending to look concerned. At least I guessed he was pretending.

"I'm so sorry," he said and his tone didn't sound particularly sincere. "are you both okay?"

"Fine." I replied trying to rub drink out of my clothes for the second time that night. Tamaki just looked Kyoya up and down.

"Didn't anyone tell you you're supposed to be wearing a costume?" he asked. I bit my lip to stop myself from laughing as I continued to try and clean myself off. Kyoya laughed softly.

"How's your mother?" he asked changing the subject completely. Tamaki seemed to soften at this.

"She's fine." he replied although still a little curtly.

"I'm surprised you don't have a pretty girl on your arm this evening." Kyoya stated. Tamaki cast a cursory glance at me.

"Well I…" he began but was cut off by Kyoya grabbing the nearest drunk girl and shoving her in Tamaki's direction. The girl immediately threw her arms around Tamaki's neck.

"You should, you make much more of an impression with a girl on your arm." Kyoya smirked as the unnamed girl pulled Tamaki into a passionate kiss. He seemed too surprised to react while Kyoya just watched looking smugly triumphant.

"You know what, I think I'm going to go." I said feeling decidedly uncomfortable. Kyoya smirked at me like he had just won the lottery.

"See you around." he said. It was almost as if he knew that I liked Tamaki. I don't know how he could but that's what it felt like. I turned and walked away, trying to keep my dignity intact, becoming angrier and angrier with every step. I had never experienced this feeling before: I could hear my heartbeat in my ears and I wanted to punch the nearest, most breakable thing that I could find. All my anger and hatred was directed straight at Kyoya and I knew exactly where I could go to vent it.

 **Mori's costume was inspired by his role as the Dormouse in the Alice In Wonderland Episode**


	9. The Best Laid Plans

**Good way to start a Tuesday morning; this insanity :D enjoy**

"I grew some balls!" I yelled as soon as Hikaru answered the door. He looked triumphant.

"Yes!" he shouted in delight. "Come with me." He grabbed my hand and began to drag me through his house – too fast for me to admire how amazing it was (although I'd been to a few Ouran houses, I was beginning to get used to it) – and up to his bedroom. Kaoru, who was sprawled out on one of the beds reading a fashion magazine, looked up when we entered.

"Why are you all wet?" he asked me.

"Long story." I replied.

"So what happened?" Hikaru asked.

"Just Kyoya!" I replied. "I hate him!"

"What did he do?" Kaoru asked.

"He's just a horrible person and I only just realised how horrible he really is." I said, not wanting to go into too much detail as that would only raise more questions. "He's got Tamaki completely fooled into thinking that he's a nice person. I mean why is he like this?"

"Because he ruins people's lives." Hikaru said. "That's just what he does."

"When we were in middle school he made everyone sign this petition saying that Hikaru and I were…"

"Kaoru!" Hikaru cut him off. "Can you not?" Kaoru shrugged and went back to his magazine. I really wanted to ask what all that was about but I figured that if Hikaru wanted to tell me then he would. He turned to me. "Look Kyoya's not going to get away with this again okay."

"You have a plan?" Kaoru asked.

"I have a plan." Hikaru grinned. He went over to a large chest in the corner of the room, routed around in it for a moment them pulled out a large sketchbook and some pens. He came back over to the bed and the three of us sat down on the floor with the sketchbook in the centre.

"So what's your plan?" I asked.

"Kyoya Ootori is an evil dictator." Hikaru stated. "Let's not split hairs about this he's up there with the big ones. And how do you overthrow a dictator?"

"Giving peasants cake?" Kaoru asked jokingly.

"By cutting off their resources." Hikaru continued as if Kaoru hadn't spoken. "Kyoya would be nothing without his high status friend," As he said this he wrote 'Tamaki Suoh' in large letters. "his technically good physique," He wrote 'hot body' underneath Tamaki's name but with sarcastic quote marks around the word 'hot'. "his well tailored clothing" He wrote 'fancy clothes' with the same sarcastic quotations around 'fancy'. "and his ignorant band of loyal followers." He finished the list with 'army of idiots'.

"We get rid of these we get rid of him?" I asked.

"That is the master plan." Hikaru stated. "Now Haruhi for this to work you're going to have to keep hanging out with 'The Hosts' as if nothing has happened. Can you do that?"

"Bring it on." I said.

"Alright let's rock this bitch!" Kaoru said excitedly.

* * *

Pretending that nothing was wrong turned out to be surprisingly easy. I had lunch with Kyoya and the others the following Monday and Tamaki was with us. I kept stealing glances at him when I thought I could get away with it and the one time our eyes met he smiled at me. I smiled back. I could tell he wanted to ask why I had disappeared on Saturday night but, luckily, there were other people around. That was a subject I wanted to avoid.

While we were eating lunch I heard the shrill voice of Renge coming towards us and I instantly felt my entire body tense up. I was supposed to have gone to a debate club meeting the other night but I had completely forgotten about it because of the party and everything else that had happened.

"Hey Cherry Blossom," she called to me as she approached. "what happened to you the other night?" Everyone turned to stare at me and I could probably guess what they were all thinking.

"I'm sorry," I replied, my face beginning to turn red. "I forgot."

"Forgot what Haru-chan?" Honey asked.

"This one," Renge said nodding in my direction. "skipped out on a Debate Club meeting the other night."

"You're joining the Debate Club?" Tamaki asked. I just shrugged slightly. Again not really a subject I wanted to go into right now.

"You guys should all think about joining." Renge stated. "If we had more members who looked like you we get a lot more recognition."

"It's tempting." Kyoya said but I knew that he was lying – there was no chance that any of them were going to join the Debate Club. "Say Renge can you settle something for us?"

"Sure." she shrugged. Kyoya reached over and pushed Tamaki's fringe out of his face.

"See I think Tamaki looks better with his hair pushed back but Haruhi is inclined to disagree. What are your thoughts?" Hang on, when did I get dragged into this?

"To be perfectly honest I think Tamaki looks good in anything… or nothing at all." she added sidling up to him. She ran a finger down his chest and looked up at him coyly. "Are you free tonight?"

"I'm currently engaged tonight, I'm afraid." Tamaki replied trying to be polite. Renge sighed theatrically.

"Shame." she said getting to her feet again and shrugging. "But if you change your minds about the Debate Club let me know and I'll see you at the next meeting Cherry Blossom, don't forget." With that she left. As soon as she was gone Kyoya turned to me.

"Are you alright Haruhi? Your face looks a little flushed."

"I'm fine." I replied.

"Yeah you're all red Haru-chan." Honey said.

"Is it because you've got a bit of a crush?" Mori asked smirking at me.

"No." I replied.

"Oh you so do." Mori stated.

"Say Tamaki," Kyoya began turning to him. "have you spoken more to that girl from the party?"

"Um no, not really." Tamaki muttered sheepishly.

"You should." Kyoya stated. "Pretty girl like that would look good on your arm. Make quite a few others jealous." I don't know if I was imagining it or what but it seemed that Kyoya was smirking in my direction as he said this. I knew I could have settled this by jumping over the table and punching him in the face but all this fighting had to be sneaky. I put on my best poker face and remained neutral so he wouldn't suspect that I was beginning to get angry. Bring it on, Dick-Weasle, you want a fight? I will end you.


	10. Cracks In The Glass

**Woo it's super busy panto time of year again - goodbye sanity I apparently didn't need you :D so let the insanity continue, hope you enjoy :D**

"This is ass you guys." Hikaru said hitting his head against the wall. "It's been a month and all we've done is make Kyoya's face smell like a foot." So far our plans for sabotage hadn't exactly gone according to plan. Kaoru had snuck into the boys' locker room during one of their sports classes and swapped Kyoya's school shirt for a tie-dyed one but people took it that he was standing for 'Gay Pride' and we had a day where everyone wore rainbow coloured shirts.

The problem was Kyoya was so popular that everyone would follow what he did. Hikaru also tried to hack into Kyoya's laptop to change all of his passwords but Hikaru isn't actually that good with computers so that plan never even made it off the ground. I swapped his face cream for foot cream… that was the only successful thing we had managed to do.

"Guess we're not as maniacal as we originally thought." Kaoru said.

"We've got to crack Mori." Hikaru said removing his head from the wall and looking determined. "We crack Mori and we crack the lock on all of Kyoya's dirty little secrets."

"Say 'crack' again." Kaoru said.

"Crack." Hikaru said and Kaoru shivered. That was odd. "Alright," Hikaru said, ignoring him. "let's reconvene tonight at ours."

"I can't tonight." I said. "I have to go to Kyoya's to practice for the end of year Talent Show. We're supposed to be dancing to this song…"

"'Jingle Bell Rock'?" Hikaru asked.

"You know it?"

"Everybody in the English speaking world knows that song." Hikaru stated. "They do it every year."

"Sweet mother of God they're still doing 'Jingle Bell Rock'?" Kaoru asked.

"Well I have to learn it and quickly." I stated.

"Oooh Kyoya Alert." Kaoru said looking over my shoulder and grabbing Hikaru by the elbow and pulling him away. "See you later."

"Bye." I said before turning around to see Kyoya standing behind me. "Hi."

"Why were you talking to the Hitachiin twins?" he asked. Okay got to make something up off the top of my head. To be fair though I'm getting scarily good at this lying thing.

"I don't know." I said shrugging. "I was so weird they just came up to me and one of them wouldn't stop talking about crack. It was so weird."

"Let me tell you something about the Hitachiin twins," Kyoya said and I knew that whatever he was about to say wasn't going to be nice. "I used to be very good friends with them when we were all in Middle School. I know right!" he added responding to a facial expression he obviously wanted to see. "It's so embarrassing, I don't even…"

"Don't even what?" I asked when he just stopped mid sentence.

"They were, and probably still are, weirdly jealous of everyone." Kyoya continued as if I hadn't spoken. "I mean they had friends but a very small circle and they didn't really socialise with other people, you know? Anyway one day I was supposed to be hanging out with them so I went over early in the morning and found them in bed… together."

"What?" I asked incredulously. Was he really basing his entire dislike of Hikaru and Kaoru on that? That hardly seemed like anything – jumping to conclusions, much?

"So my parents told the School Board, then their parents called my parents and everyone was yelling – it was so stupid." he continued, again, as if I hadn't spoken. "Then when they graduated up to High School they'd cut their hair, wouldn't talk to anyone and were even weirder and now I guess they're both on crack."

"Right." I wasn't sure how much I believed this revelation. Hiakru and Kaoru were incredibly close – maybe almost too close considering I was the only other person they ever spoke to – but on the other hand this was Kyoya I was talking to and this could easily have been a fabrication.

"No word of a lie." he said meaning every word was a lie.

"So," I began rapidly changing the subject. "are you going to send any candy canes?" I nodded in the direction of the table a little way off. Kaoru had told me that it was an Ouran tradition for people to send each other candy canes at Christmas if they were special to them – kind of like chocolates and stuff on Valentines Day. Kyoya shook his head.

"I don't send them, I just get them." he stated, smirking. "So you'd better send me one."

"You can count on it." I replied as he walked away. I was definitely going to send him one. I was going to use three of these things to crack Mori and then the game was on.

* * *

I was sitting in class listening to Mr Norbury and making notes when Kaoru burst, flamboyantly, into the room dressed like one of Santa's elves and carrying a large sack. I couldn't help but grin; he looked absolutely ecstatic.

"Candy cane grams!" he sang. Mr Norbury rolled his eyes, apparently he had been forwarded of this tradition.

"Alright get on with it." he said. Kaoru put the sack on the floor and pulled out a bundle of candy canes.

"Kiyoura Ryutaro," he said and a boy towards the back put his hand up. Kaoru went and handed over a couple of the candy canes. "two for you."

"Thanks!" the boy beamed. Clearly this was a tradition that made people very happy.

"Glen Coco?" Kaoru asked and the American exchange student who always sat at the front and never said anything put his hand up. Kaoru proudly handed over a larger bunch. "Four for you Glen Coco, you go Glen Coco! And Fujioka Haruhi. Do we have a Fujoika Haruhi?"

"That's me." I said raising my hand and raising an eyebrow at him. He grinned as he bounded over to me – he was really loving this, it was quite sweet.

"Two for you." he said.

"Two?" I asked, confused. Kaoru nodded as he handed them to me. I knew there was going to be one – that had always been the plan but who was the second one from? I wanted to ask but Kaoru was moving on. He shot a pointed look at Mori who was retaking this class and sitting next to me.

"And none for Morinozuka, bye!" he said and with that he picked up his sack and bounded out of the room. While Mr Norbury was trying to get the class to settle and focus on the lesson again Mori cast a furtive glance in my direction.

"Who are they from?" he asked. I picked up the one with my own handwriting on the tag.

"'Thanks for being such a good friend, Kyoya.' That's so nice." I said. Mori looked dejected.

"Who's the other one from?" he asked trying not to make it obvious that he was upset. I looked at the card but there didn't seem to be anything on it.

"It doesn't say." I replied. I turned the card over and my face began to heat up as I read the letters 'T.S.'

 **Awwww**


	11. Rock The Night Away

**So this is something nice and dumb after a crappy day at work, enjoy :D**

Once Mori thought that Kyoya was mad at him the secrets began pouring out, all I had to do was wait for one that I could use. By the night of the Talent Show Mori was practically spiralling into depression because he thought Kyoya was angry with him. His mood didn't improve when he asked Honey about his candy cane.

"What do you mean you got one too?" I heard him ask Honey as I was trying to fit into the ridiculously tight costume Kyoya's mother had made. I'm pretty sure someone was going to notice the minimal amount of boob I had tonight.

"It's just a candy cane." Honey replied. Thankfully he hadn't been able to recognise that it was my handwriting on the card but, then again, I hadn't expected him to. "Maybe yours got lost." he offered.

"Is Kyoya mad at me?" he asked. "Has he said anything to you?"

"Nothing unusual." Honey replied and I could have shoved my face into the wall. That just wasn't smart even for Honey, although it did work in my favour.

"What's 'usual'?" Mori asked.

"Just that you talk a lot." Honey shrugged.

"Whose fault is that!" Mori huffed before leaving Honey and coming over to me. He sighed heavily.

"Are you okay, Mori-Sempai?" I asked.

"Why would Kyoya send you two candy canes and not me?" he asked.

"Maybe he just forgot." I shrugged. "He has been a little off colour recently. Is there something bothering him?"

"Well his parents aren't sleeping in the same bed anymore if that's what you mean." Mori said before slapping his hand over his mouth. "Please don't tell him I told you that."

"Won't say a word." I replied.

"I mean, no offence, why would he send you a candy cane?" he asked. "He doesn't even like you that much."

"I think you're focusing on this a little too much Mori-Sempai." I said even though I knew he wasn't listening.

"I think he feels weird around me because I'm the only person who knows about his nose job." he said before slapping his hand over his mouth again. "Pretend you didn't hear that." I mimed zipping my lips shut as Kyoya entered the dressing room, followed by Tamaki, also in costume.

"You all ready?" Kyoya asked before turning and leaving again. The rest of us followed him to the wings of the stage. I peeked out and saw Renge surrounded by a gang of scantily clad boys jumping around and rapping. Now this was going to be entertaining.

"All you sucka MCs ain't got nothing on me

From my grade to my lines you can't touch Renge

I'm the Asian persuasion, so truly amazing

I drop the bomb rhymes on every occasion

It ain't no trick, I am this slick

All the second year boys want me on their… I'm just kidding

I'm a debater so nerd is inferred but forget what you heard

I'm like James Bond the third; shaken not stirred

I'm not a whore, I'm just silent when I sneak in your door

And make love to your man on the bathroom floor

I don't play it like Shaggy – you'll know it was me

'Cause the next time you see him he'll be like 'urgh Renge!'"

"Thank you Miss Houshakuji," Miss Duval shouted, cutting off the music and the microphone. "that's quite enough." Renge grinned and gave the crowd a 'peace' sign.

"Happy Holidays everybody." she said before leaving the stage.

"Well," Miss Duval said. "that was certainly something. Now for the next act we have 'Santa's Little Helpers' doing 'Jingle Bell Rock'." Oh god that's us! My heart felt like it was going a million miles a minute as I followed the rest of 'The Hosts' onto the stage. My nerves instantly disappeared as I passed Hiakru and Kaoru in the wings. The both of them gave me a thumbs up after Kyoya had passed and I nearly burst out laughing as I heard Kaoru muttering to Hikaru.

"Does it bother you that they still use our original choreography?"

"Shut up." Hikaru muttered back so it clearly did.

I stood staring out at the audience with Mori fidgeting behind me, Kyoya in the middle and Tamaki and Honey on the other side. The butterflies were starting up in my stomach again and I felt like I was going to throw up. All I needed to do was hold it together for the length of the song. To be honest I seemed to be holding it together better than Mori.

"Will you stop fidgeting!" Kyoya hissed.

"I'm sorry." Mori whispered back. "This costume is getting too tight."

"And you're getting on my last nerve. Now stop it!" Kyoya snapped back. Mori didn't have time to argue as the music started and we began to dance. I had managed to get the routine engrained into my memory pretty quickly but I made sure that I kept an eye on Kyoya in my peripheral vision.

Everything seemed to be going pretty well – the girls in the crowd seemed to be enjoying the show, I couldn't quite see the reactions of everybody. I'm so glad my Dad was working late tonight and not able to make it. I don't think he would have been hugely bothered but at the same time I didn't want to have to explain all of this to him. Like I said, the crowd seemed to be enjoying it and it wasn't totally not fun for me either. Everything was going pretty well… until a slightly too enthusiastic kick from Mori knocked the CD player off the edge of the stage where it smashed into some poor unfortunate in the front row's face.

The entire room seemed to slow down. Kyoya was glaring at Mori with such ferocity I thought that he was going to burst into flames. The audience was stunned into silence, teachers were crowding the guy with a potentially broken nose and I needed to think up something to do to get us out of this situation. I racked my brains but I wasn't coming up with anything useful until it suddenly hit me. Something Hikaru had said: 'everyone in the English speaking world knows that song' and I had managed to learn it all in three days. Before I could stop myself I opened my mouth and started to sing.

"What a bright time, it's the right time

To rock the night away…"

The rest of 'The Hosts' were looking at me like I was insane and from the wings I caught Hikaru mouthing 'what are you doing' in my direction. I'll admit I'm not the world's best singer (I can barely even be classed as good) but someone needed to do something. I caught Tamaki's eye.

"Come on." I hissed at him hoping I could get something started. He seemed to take the hint and began to sing with me. As we sang a couple of people in the audience began to sing along with us.

"Jingle Bell time, is a swell time

To go riding in a one-horse sleigh…"

Pretty soon I had managed to get the whole auditorium singing along with us as we finished off the routine.

Once we were backstage and it was over I heaved a great sigh of relief – I never want to do anything like that ever again as long as I live. Honey seemed to be bouncing off the walls and Tamaki gave me a congratulatory pat on the shoulder when Kyoya wasn't looking.

"That's the best it ever went." Honey cried laughing happily. "Hurray for Haru-chan!"

"Yes that was very quick thinking on your part Haruhi." Kyoya said.

"No problem." I nodded.

"It's just a shame it was needed at all." he added casting a snide glare in Mori's direction, who just seemed to shrink underneath it. Well that could have gone worse…


	12. Back In The Game

**Yay we're about half way through now :D I'm enjoying this way too much I hope you are too, also in this chapter here is the reason for why Mori talks so much (can't remember if they specify this in the anime or if it's just in the manga but either way)**

"Why should Caesar get to stomp around like a giant while the rest of us try not to get squashed by his big feet?" Mori said in the class discussion the following week getting more and more animated the more he went on. "What's so great about Caesar? Brutus is just as intelligent and interesting as Caesar and people like Brutus just as much as they like Caesar. When did it become okay for one person to boss everyone else around because that is not what Rome is about. Everyone should just stab Caesar!" Mori had cracked.

"Well thank you Mr Morinozuka, that's certainly an interesting take on Shakespeare." Mr Norbury said after a very awkward pause as the bell rang. "We'll talk more about that next time."

"Are you okay?" I asked Mori as we collected our books together and left the room. Mori sighed.

"I'm fine." he lied. He looked so unhappy and I really felt for him. I placed my hand on his arm and nodded my head in the direction of an empty classroom.

"Come on." I told him. I locked the door behind us once we were inside so that we wouldn't be disturbed and sat him down on the edge of one of the desks. "Is this about Kyoya-Sempai?"

"If you only knew how awful he really is." he said shaking his head. "You know I've been sleep deprived pretty much since we started hanging out together so that he doesn't have to talk to Mitsukuni on his own."

"What?"

"I'm usually really quite." Mori explained. "I don't talk to people much unless I'm really, really tired. I haven't slept properly in nearly three years! And you know he's screwing over Tamaki." he added after a pause.

"What?"

"You know that girl that Tamaki has been seeing since the night of his Halloween party?" Mori asked.

"Vaguely." I replied although that was a complete lie I just hadn't been thinking about it.

"Kyoya's been sleeping with her while Tamaki's been doing extra curricular lessons." Mori said. "They get together in one of the old music rooms no one ever goes in every Thursday afternoon and I never told anyone this because Kyoya made me promise not to." Well I'll be damned. My mind was going at a mile a minute. With this information I could make Tamaki remember why he stopped being friends with Kyoya in the first place. I needed to talk to the twins.

"Hey Mori-Sempai, go home and get some sleep." I told him. "I'll tell the others you weren't feeling well and you just forget about everything for a couple of hours."

"Thanks Haruhi." Mori said looking relieved. He pushed himself off the desk, came over to me and hugged me. I must admit it did feel quite nice because he's mostly all muscle and I hugged him back. "I'll see you tomorrow." he said, giving my hair a ruffle and leaving the room.

I waited until I was sure that he was gone, I even waited until he had disappeared down the corridor before I left the classroom and ran to find Hiakru and Kaoru. They were exactly where I thought they would have been at this point – hiding out behind the school so that they didn't have to go to Health Class. Both of them looked puzzled when I came up to them panting and sweating slightly.

"The plan's back on." I told them. Hikaru whooped with delight.

* * *

We tried a few attempts to get Tamaki to 'accidentally' discover that Kyoya was sleeping with his girlfriend but all – much like our first plans to destroy Kyoya – were unsuccessful. All we had managed to find out was that the Physical Education teacher was having sex with one of the third year boys. I had pointed out that we should probably tell the school board about that but the twins said that would cause more trouble than it was worth.

"Why did we think we could do this? We are complete amateurs." I said to the twins after our third failed attempt. My dad was working late so they had come over to my house for the evening so that we could do some more planning although by this point I just wanted to go to bed. This whole thing was beginning to get exhausting and I wasn't sure that I hated Kyoya enough to keep going.

"We just need to regroup and think outside the box a little more." Hikaru said. I sighed. I though that was what we had been doing.

"Hey what are Kälteen bars?" Kaoru asked pulling a very old box of them out of the cupboard he had been looking through.

"They're these weird Swedish nutrition bars that make you gain weight. My doctor prescribed then to me a few years ago because apparently I'm 'too thin'." I said not really thinking too much of it. It was like a light-bulb moment and all three of us turned to stare at each other open-mouthed.

"Oh my god!" we all said in unison.

"Can you spin in so you can get Kyoya to eat these?" Hikaru asked.

"Of course I can." I replied. "He's going to notice after a little while though, he probably weighs himself more than most guys do."

"Oh there's a trick our housemaid learnt when our mother sent her off to fat camp!" Kaoru piped up. "You can rig a set of bathroom scales with some dental floss so that it always says the same weight."

"Perfect." Hikaru said grinning evilly.

* * *

"They're these weird nutrition bars my father eats when he has to work a lot." I told Kyoya after giving him the Kälteen bars at lunch the next day. "They fill you up so you don't have to take time out to eat."

"It's all in Swedish." he said looking up from the ingredients list.

"Yeah there's some ingredients in them that aren't legal in Japan yet." I said. I was making things up on the fly and, I'm horrified to say that I'm actually getting quite good at that now. I'm going to think of this as good practice for being a lawyer later in life.

"Interesting." Kyoya said opening one of the bars and taking a bite. "They taste like cardboard."

"Price you pay." I shrugged before carrying on with my own lunch, which was a lot more appetising.

The weird thing about spending time with Kyoya was that I could hate him and at the same time still want him to like me for some strange reason. It was the same with Mori. The meaner Kyoya was to him the more Mori tried to win back his affection. In his mind it was better to be with 'The Hosts' hating life that to not be with them at all because being with 'The Hosts' was like being famous. People looked at you all the time and everybody just knew stuff about you.

"Oh my god you're Fujioka Haruhi!" a first year girl squealed behind me.

"Um, yes hi." I said turning to face her.

"I heard you're so smart you're taking second year law classes," the girl said, her face bright pink. "and I was wondering if maybe you could tutor me."

"Sure thing." I replied while trying to work out how this girl knew me and if I was supposed to know who she was.

"Great." she beamed and handed me a small piece of paper. "Here's my number; give me a call and we can get together."

"Ok." I smiled politely. She blew me a kiss and walked away. Why am I doing this again?


	13. Kiss Kiss Fall In Love

**Here we are getting into some romancey type things ;) but of course it's hardly going to be smooth sailing hope you all enjoy :D**

After five months of doing this it was beginning to get exhausting. I spent fifty percent of my time with Kyoya and the other fifty percent talking about him. It got to the point where I had found out everything I was going to find out and I could hear Hikaru getting bored whenever I ended up retelling him and Kaoru something I had already told them.

"Yeah you've told us that one before." he said after I told him that Kyoya burst one of the buttons on his school blazer. Since he had started eating the Kälteen bars he had been putting on weight pretty quickly – I'm surprised he hadn't noticed even after I had rigged his bathroom scales.

"Sorry." I replied shrugging. "That's all I've got."

"Hey Haruhi," Kaoru said after a pause. "our mother is hosting a fashion show on the 28th and we'd love it if you could come."

"Yeah you can take a night off from your double life." Hikaru added. While a little annoyed at Hikaru's tone considering as he was the one who goaded me into this stupid idea in the first place I was very flattered by the invite.

"Sure that would be great." I said, smiling. "I'll stick it on my calendar when I get home."

"What's that smell?" Hikaru asked as I turned to leave. I guess he was talking about me as Kyoya had practically doused me in some kind of fancy spray earlier.

"Kyoya gave me some cologne." I replied.

"You smell like a male prostitute." Hikaru said.

"I know I'm going to wash it off as soon as I get home." I replied.

"Please do." Kaoru said.

"I'll see you guys tomorrow." I grinned and left. As I turned round the corridor I bumped into Tamaki. He smiled at me and I could feel myself going red. Why did I just fail to function as a normal human when I was around him?

"Hey," he smiled. "I haven't seen you in a while."

"Yeah sorry, I've been busy." I hedged. Leading a double life attempting to destroy someone who you're supposed to be friends with even though you hate them counts as busy, right?

"Shame," Tamaki said. "I've missed you."

"I'm heading home now if you want to walk with me?" I blurted out before I could stop myself. Of course the answer is going to be no, Haruhi you idiot, he's probably got some fancy car to take him home.

"That would be nice." Tamaki said, much to my surprise.

"Grool." I said before smacking myself in the face with the palm of my hand again. Tamaki laughed. "I did that thing again."

"I think it's endearing." he said. I just blushed as we began to walk out of the building together. "So how are you finding Ouran?" he asked after a pause.

"It's kind of intense but I'm sort of used to that now." I replied.

"Yeah I must admit I was a little overwhelmed when I first started here." he said. "But you seem to have made friends really quickly."

"Yeah," I replied. "I mean I know everyone was really interested in me because of the whole scholarship thing but there are people I can just sort of be myself around." That was a bit of a stretch. Really the only person who I was totally myself around was Tamaki because he was the only one who knew I was a girl.

"I know you spend a lot of time with Kyoya, Mori-Sempai and Honey-Sempai," he said. "what about people in your year?"

"I get on pretty well with the Hitachiin twins." I said.

"Really?" He seemed surprised by this. "I thought that didn't get on with anyone."

"We found we had some common ground." I stated. That was certainly one way of putting it.

"So I never really did get a chance to apologise for what happened at my Halloween party." he said.

"Don't worry about it." I shrugged.

"I know but…"

"It's fine." I said cutting him off. I wasn't sure if I wanted to know what he had been about to say especially as he was still seeing whatever her name was (I hadn't bothered to learn).

"Still," he said. "consider this my formal apology."

"Apology accepted." I smiled. I stopped in front of the block I lived in and turned to face him. "Well this is me." I said.

"Okay." Tamaki said. He seemed a little sad that we wouldn't be able to carry on talking which prompted me to blurt out something else.

"Do you want to come up for a bit?" I asked without thinking. Tamaki smiled and reached over to brush my fringe out of my eyes.

"That would be nice." he said. I could feel something buzzing in the air around us like electricity and I took a step closer to him. He ran his hand through my hair to cup the back of my head. I froze. We were so close and my heart was pounding against my chest so loudly I could hear it. His other hand tilted my chin up and time seemed to slow down as he leaned down and softly kissed me.

That was my first kiss and the feeling of Tamaki's lips against mine was something I knew I was going to remember for the rest of my life. It was short, it was sweet and I really didn't want him to pull away. My knees felt weak and it was a good thing he was still holding on to me otherwise I was sure that I would have tripped over my own feet.

"You have really nice eyes." I breathed as I looked up into them. Tamaki smiled but then sighed as he seemed to come back to reality.

"I'm sorry." he said. "I shouldn't have done that."

"Why?" I asked, momentarily forgetting that he did still have a girlfriend.

"It isn't fair to you." he said. "I mean I am still seeing…"

"Kyoya's sleeping with her." It came out before I could stop it – kind of like word vomit. "I'm sorry." I said immediately after I realised that I had said it. "I didn't mean for that to come out like that."

"How long have you known?" he asked.

"A while." I replied. Tamaki looked very serious for a moment. "I'm sorry," I said again. "I wanted to tell you sooner but I didn't know how to and this definitely wasn't the best way."

"It's okay." he said. It wasn't but at least he was nice enough to pretend. "I'm glad you did tell me."

"So what do you want to do?" I asked.

"I need to go and have a word with Kyoya," he said. "but I would like to continue this."

"Okay." I replied, there wasn't a whole lot else that I could really say to that. He needed some time after what I'd just told him. He placed both of his hands on the sides of my head and kissed my forehead softly.

"Thank you." he said. "I'll call you as soon as I can okay?"

"Okay." I replied and watched as Tamaki briskly made his way down the street, around the corner and out of site.

* * *

"Did he say why?" Mori asked Kyoya as he sat on Kyoya's bed the following night having just listen to a full five minute rant from Kyoya about how Tamaki had chewed him out in front of the entire second year form class for sleeping with his girlfriend – yet again – and lying to his face about it.

"He said someone from his French class told him about it." Kyoya snorted. I sat there and said nothing although I did catch Mori's eye and he looked slightly relieved about it. Evidently Tamaki didn't want to get me into trouble with Kyoya, which was quite good and saved me a lot of grief.

"I mean who does he think he is?" Kyoya practically shouted. "When he first moved here he had no friends and no social standing and then I gave him that."

"Hey," Honey piped up beaming at Kyoya. "You wanna do something fun? We could go and get Onigiri."

"I can't; I'm supposed to be on that Kälteen diet." Kyoya snapped. "My god, Honey-Sempai, you are so stupid!" With that he flounced into the bathroom. Mori hot on his heals.

"Wait!" he called after him. "Kyoya talk to me." Honey and I sat on the bed, listening to Kyoya ranting and Mori trying to console him until a door closed and their conversation became much quieter. I turned to Honey who was looking a little dejected.

"You're not stupid Honey-Sempai." I said trying to sound reassuring.

"No. I am, actually." he stated after a pause. "I'm failing almost everything."

"There must be something you're good at?" I asked. He paused, thinking.

"I can fit my whole fist in my mouth." he said, grinning triumphantly. "Wanna see?" He lifted his closed fist towards his mouth. I placed my hand over his and lowered it in an attempt to stop him.

"That's okay." I told him. He looked dejected again. "Anything else?"

"I'm kind of psychic." he said, conspiratorially tapping his temple. "I have a fifth sense."

"You do anyway but carry on." I replied.

"My hair can always tell when it's going to rain." he told me.

"Wow!" I said, surprised. "That's actually really cool."

"Well..." he added after a pause. "It can tell when it's raining. It gets really wet." I sat there for a moment processing this.

"Would you excuse me for a second?" I asked. He nodded. I went over to Kyoya's en-suit, closed the door behind me and then rammed my face into it.


	14. Nominations

**I'm enjoying this story, it makes me so happy (especially when work is kind of dragging me down at the moment) hope you're all enjoying it too :D**

So I'm not proud to admit that I was mildly upset when Tamaki didn't immediately get in contact with me and tell me that he wanted to see me again outside of school. However when I actually sat down and thought about it logically I realised that, considering the entire rest of the school thought I was a boy it would probably look a little strange. Also it must have been difficult for Tamaki – he had just found out that, not only had his girlfriend been cheating on him with his best fried finding out that I knew about it too can't have been particularly easy.

Kyoya moved on pretty quickly and he and the girl who's name I never bother to learn (and, if I was honest, still had no intention of learning) continued to see each other. Mostly when she was with us she remained pretty much silent, preferring to look up at Kyoya like she was in love and pretend that the rest of us didn't exist. This was fine by me. I was beginning to get a little sick of hanging around with Kyoya and co but, as Hikaru kept reminding me, I had to keep thinking about the plan.

Overall, the plan was going pretty well; Tamaki had publicly called Kyoya out for sleeping with his girlfriend and had sworn to have nothing more to do with him and Kyoya was unknowingly eating about 8,000 calories a day. It was then that we decided to turn our attention to the Army of Idiots.

Round about this time each year Ouran gets ready to hold its annual fair. From what I can gather it is kind of like an American High School Prom but flashier and more over the top (because it's Ouran). Every year they choose one male and one female from the entire school to be crowned Prince and Princess of the fair. Kaoru, being on the Student Council, had done a little bit of tampering with the ballot papers; more putting ones in than taking them out. They announced the nominees over the school PA one morning during our first class.

"And finally," Miss Duval said over the PA. "the nominees for the Prince of the Fair are as follows: Ootori Kyoya, Morinosuka Takashi, Hitachiin Hikaru..." At this point Hikaru turned round and punched Kaoru, who was having trouble holding in his laughter, on the arm.

"You're such an arse!" he said.

"I couldn't help myself." Kaoru laughed. "It was too easy."

"And the final nominee," Miss Duval continued. "is Fujioka Haruhi." I turned to stare at Kaoru, shocked and a little angry, much like Hikaru.

"Koaru," I hissed. "you put me in there too? That wasn't part of the plan."

"I had nothing to do with that." Kaoru stated. "I just messed with him." He gestured to Hikaru who turned to scowl at the board and ignore him.

"You mean I'm really nominated?" I asked, surprised and a little confused.

"Guess so Sweet Cheeks." Kaoru replied. Now that was an interesting turn of events that I hadn't quite expected. I turned my attention back to the board as the chatter in the room died down, not really knowing what to make of it.

* * *

Earlier that year Kyoya had put a suit for the Fair on hold at a store called 'Suit Up' but being a Host (and being Kyoya) he needed our advice and approval before he actually bought it. He got the shirt and the jacket on with mostly little struggle but when it came to getting the suit trousers on and zipped up he began to have problems.

"Can one of you zip me up?" he asked. Mori – being Mori – jumped in to try and help him in what ever way he possibly could. Between the both of them they still struggled to get both the zipper and buttons done up in a way that would allow Kyoya to sit down, move or breath.

"It won't close!" Mori stated dejectedly.

"It should do. I gave them my measurements months ago." Kyoya snapped.

"It must be marked wrong then." Honey stated. Kyoya rounded on me.

"Haruhi, all I've been eating are these Kälteen bars." he snapped. "They're useless."

"No that's just how they work." I told him, once again using my brand new skill of making things up on the fly. "This is all just water. You bloat for a bit and then you drop back to less than you originally were."

"How does that work?" Mori asked. Oh god, now I have to make up scientific stuff? Here goes nothing.

"Well first the Kälteen bars burn up all your carbs, leaving your body to run on just water and once that's gone it's all muscle." I stated. The three of them stared at me but didn't seem to be questioning it so I figured I was safe. "It explains it all on the label." I added for good measure. This caused them to stare even more.

"You know Swedish?" Mori asked. I nodded.

"They taught us at my old school." I lied. "It was one of the most popular languages that people chose, after English." And just like that Kyoya's 'hot body' and supposedly 'fancy clothes' could be crossed off the list.

* * *

With the amount of time that I had been spending with The Hosts it felt as if I was slipping further and further away from what actually mattered to me. I was only ever able to speak to Hikaru and Kaoru in class or occasionally on the phone and even then it was very rare that I got to talk about something that wasn't Kyoya and The Hosts. It was the same with Tamaki. Whenever we tried to talk outside of class or have a conversation that was longer than three minutes Kyoya would show up and Tamaki would tell me that he'd see me later before making a swift exit.

These days the only people I had any regular contact with were Kyoya, Honey and Mori, which would have been fine if they kept it to just at school. Ever since Kyoya had somehow gotten my home phone number I would get a call from either him, Honey or Mori pretty much every single night. Occasionally there would be a three, or even four way call but at least now I was prepared for that eventuality.

"Mori-Sempai thinks you're mad at him because he's running alongside you for Prince of the Fair." I told Kyoya after he had spent a good five minutes bullying me into telling him why Mori had been acting strangely at school the last couple of days.

"Is that it?" Kyoya asked sounding relieved. "I'm not mad at him; I'm worried about him."

"Why?" I asked cocking the phone between my head and my shoulder so I could make myself a sandwich.

"I think somebody nominated him as a joke or something and when nobody votes for him he's going to have a meltdown and then I'm going to have to pick up the pieces." Kyoya explained.

"Why don't you think anyone's going to vote for him?" I asked.

"Come on Haruhi, think it through." Kyoya told me. "He's not interesting. Sure he's tall and attractive and he does some martial arts but that is all he has going for him. I mean that sounds really bad but whatever. The thing about the Prince of the Fair is that he's both attractive and interesting."

"Right..." I replied.

"The crazy thing is that it should be Honey-Sempai," Kyoya continued as if I hadn't spoken. "but people tend to forget about him because he's such an idiot."

"Fair enough." I replied shrugging even though I knew he couldn't see me. "Can you give me one second, I think I have someone on the other line."

"Hurry up." he replied. I pushed a button on my phone. "Well he's not mad at you." I told Mori who had insisted he be on the other end the entire time. "Are you okay?" I asked when he didn't answer.

"Hang on, I need to get Mitzukuni in on this." he stated. I waited a couple of seconds, silently wondering what this would achieve.

"Hello?" Honey said quite quickly.

"If someone said something bad about you, you'd want me to tell you, right?" Mori said.

"No." Honey replied.

"What if it was someone you thought was your friend?" Mori asked.

"What are you...?" Honey began but stopped suddenly. "Hang on, someone else is calling me."

"I'm not going to take this anymore." Mori told me.

"Good for you Mori-Sempai." I replied.

"Hello?" I heard Honey say and I realised that he was talking to Kyoya, a conversation that I was still technically party to.

"Let's go out." Kyoya said. "I'm on the phone with Haruhi.

"Okay." Honey said brightly. "Hold on though, I'm on the other line with Takashi."

"Don't invite him." Kyoya said. "He's driving me insane."

"Okay, hold on." Honey said and I heard his voice switch to the conversation with Mori. "It's Kyoya. He wants to hang out with me tonight but he told me not to tell you." Tactful as ever Honey.

"Don't hang out with him." Mori said. "Kyoya just told Haruhi that no one takes you seriously because you're such an idiot." Thank you for dragging me into this Mori. To be fair I may have started this so this is entirely my fault.

"He said that?" Honey asked.

"You didn't hear it from me." Mori said.

"That was a little harsh Mori-Sempai." I stated.

"He had a right to know." Mori replied before hanging up completely.

"I can't come." Honey told Kyoya and fake coughed. "I'm sick."

"Boo, you whore." Kyoya replied. I heard the dial tone of Honey hanging up. "So are you up for anything?" he asked me.

"Probably shouldn't." I replied. "I've got some homework I need to do for tomorrow."

"Fair enough." he stated. "I'm going to bed then."

"See you tomorrow." I said and hung up. That could have gone worse but then again that could have gone a lot better. I'm never doing anything like that again – it's way too much effort.


	15. New Head Host In Town

**Basically this is a short little chapter of filler before the chaos of the later chapters, hope you enjoy though :D**

"Kyoya," Mori said the next day at lunch. "we have to talk."

"If I eat this will it boost the effects of those Kälteen bars?" Kyoya asked me holding up a small pack of sushi rolls. I almost wish I'd never told him about those bars. He had become obsessed with them.

"Sure," I replied. "why not?"

"Kyoya," Mori said again. "Mitzukuni and I have been talking and with how you've been recently we don't want you to sit with us anymore."

"What?" Kyoya asked.

"You're kind of cold and aloof and we can get behind that," Mori stated. "but you've been really over the top with it recently and we don't want you to sit with us anymore." Kyoya's eyes widened and this was the first time I had seen his face fall. I tried to block out what was happening next to me and just concentrate on my food so that I didn't get dragged into it.

"But..." Kyoya began.

"You can't sit with us!" Honey screeched and a couple of people on neighbouring tables turned to stare. I shrank into my seat even more. Kyoya sighed and shook his head.

"Fine, whatever." he said standing up and walking away and putting his hands up as if to say that he was done. "You dick-heads can walk home."

Aside from that the rest of lunch was relatively uneventful as was the rest of the day. That was until I finished classes for the day when I found Mori and Honey waiting outside my last class for me. They then proceeded to follow me around the school and down the road I usually walked to go home. It was the strangest experience I'd had so far. Plus the way they were talking to me as well, as if they were hanging onto my every word. It seemed as if I had replaced Kyoya as the Head Host. I wasn't sure how I felt about this.

"So what are we doing this weekend?" Mori asked.

"Yeah, what are we doing?" Honey asked. We? I thought.

"I um..." I began, not sure how to respond to that. I was supposed to go to Hikaru and Kaoru's fashion show.

"Nothing?" Mori asked.

"Good!" Honey said without giving me the chance to answer.

"I didn't say that." I replied but neither of them were listening.

"We'll have a super, mega, awesome party!" Honey cried excitedly.

"Yes!" Mori added. "We can have it at my house and it can be your debut as a proper Host, Haruhi." Both of them looked at me expectantly. I knew that this was going to be a hugely extravagant affair and I was going to hate every second of it. Just open your mouth and tell them that you're already busy.

I was about to, I really was. I was going to tell them that I wasn't free this weekend and that, if this was something they really really just had to do, then we would have to do it another time. But I didn't. Over the past couple of months I had got to learn all of Honey and Mori's eccentricities and I knew that Honey wasn't going to let the subject drop and Mori would go along with whatever Honey wanted so it was just best to let them get on with it.

"Sure," I said, feeling like the worst person in the world. "sounds great."

 **Oh Haruhi this is not going to end well for you...**


	16. Party Provocations

**This is probably one of my favourite chapters of this story so far; shit goes down and everything seems to explode so always a good way to spend a party haha hope you enjoy it :D**

"So have you heard about this party at Mori-Sempai's house tomorrow night?" I asked Tamaki as we left law class on Friday afternoon.

"I pretty sure the entire school has heard about it – the way Honey-Sempai has been going on about it." he replied. "How do you feel about it?"

"It's not exactly my idea of how I want to spend a Saturday evening," I replied thinking about Hikaru and Kaoru. I hadn't really explained to them what had happened because I knew that that would have gone down like a lead balloon so I had just told them I couldn't make it and ran off to class. "but it will make Mori-Sempai and Honey-Sempai happy."

"Fair enough." Tamaki shrugged not saying what he really thought, which I could tell was that this was not the reason to go to an over the top party.

"Do you maybe want to come and keep me company?" I asked.

"Is Kyoya going?" Tamaki asked. Obviously the idea of being forced to be around Kyoya for any more time than was necessary was a bit of a stretch and I could certainly understand that.

"Nope." I replied grinning. Tamaki grinned back.

"I'll be there."

* * *

I had just finished getting ready and was about to leave for Mori's house when I heard a knock at the door. I stared at the door for a moment, working out if they actually had the right house. It was only when they knocked again did I realise that the person on the other side was looking for me and they weren't in the wrong place. I opened the door and to my horror I saw Mori, Honey and a load of other people I vaguely recognised from school standing behind them.

"We thought as it's your debut we'd bring the party to you!" Honey exclaimed happily.

"That's..." I began but had no idea how I was going to finish that one. "How did you find out where I lived?"

"We got one of the geeks to hack into the school's database and got your address from there." Mori stated.

"Right..." I replied trying to ignore the blatant lack of personal privacy and how awful the school's security systems were. "These people aren't all going to fit in here." I stated.

"That's why we thought we could make it a street party too." Honey said. Oh my god this is going to end so badly!

"Are you not ready yet?" Mori asked looking me up and down. I looked down at myself.

"Yeah..." I replied. He and Honey looked at each other then gave me a condescendingly sympathetic look. The pair of them both frogmarched me to my room and proceeded to get me to change into a suit they had bought for me while some people I had never met set up speakers in my living room.

* * *

A few hours into the party I was beginning to feel rather fuzzy and light headed. I had been passed a cup of something I had thought was water but turned out not to be. This had kept happening and I hadn't seemed to have learnt my lesson until about the forth or fifth and then (after finding Mori in my bedroom with a girl) I had drunk a few of my own accord. Finally, after Renge had told me that I wasn't her type – even though I was 'really hot' she preferred redheads – I sought out solitude in my father's bedroom.

I shut the door behind me and sighed, leaning against it. It was only then that I realised I wasn't alone. Tamaki was standing over by my father's wardrobe looking at all the photographs he had of me growing up on display. Tamaki turned when he heard the door close and he smiled when he saw me.

"Hey." he said.

"Hi." I slurred.

"You okay?" he asked.

"All good." I replied giving him a thumbs up but still swaying slightly where I stood.

"I was looking everywhere for you." he told me.

"Me too," I replied. "but for you."

"You look..." he began taking in the extravagant suit (that I may or may not have spilt drink down). I could tell he didn't like it. "New clothes?"

"Mori-Sempai and Honey-Sempai picket it out." I explained. He nodded.

"Do you want to go back out there?" he asked.

"Not particularly." I replied. I stumbled over to where my father's futon was folded in the corner and sat down on it. "Oh hello, that's better." I muttered to myself as I practically sunk into it and waited for the world to stop spinning. Tamaki came and sat beside me.

"You sure you're okay?" he asked again.

"Let's say sixty percent." I told him. "Thanks for coming tonight." I said after a pause.

"Thank you for getting me to come out." he said.

"No problem."

"I know I've been acting strangely and I've been wasting too much time being pissed off at Kyoya." Tamaki said shaking his head. "It's just embarrassing really. You think you know someone and you find out they've been lying to you the entire time. He's done this kind of thing before so I really shouldn't be surprised that he's done it again."

"You know I'd never lie to you, right?" I told him. He ruffled my hair affectionately.

"I know." he smiled.

"Although I'm not the best judge of character." I said before I could stop myself. Tamaki laughed.

"Well you do have the entire school believing you're a boy." he joked.

"There's that..." I said. "Also I lied to Hikaru and Kaoru about where I was going to be tonight, I lied to Mori-Sempai to get him to tell me Kyoya-Sempai's darkest secrets and I lied to Kyoya-Sempai about food bars that make you fat."

"What are you talking about?" Tamaki asked looking confused. I sighed. I was on a roll now and it was going to come out one way or the other.

"I've been scheming with the Hitachiin twins to make Kyoya-Sempai's life hell." I confessed.

"What?"

"You heard me." I stated. "Please don't make me say it again." Tamaki got to his feet and looked at me with what I can only describe as a look of disgust and betrayal.

"You know what? You're just as bad as Kyoya is." With that he stalked out of the room. I heaved myself to my feet and darted after him.

"Sempai wait, I can explain!" I called as we both reached the street. He turned back briefly for a second.

"I don't want to hear it." he told me. "I thought you were different and you actually had something more about you but, no. You're just like a clone of Kyoya and I don't need the trouble – I just got rid of one, I don't need another."

"But..." I began. I felt like crying. I never should have agreed to this in the first place and now it was going to come back and bite me on the arse.

"Hey!" I heard Kyoya shout from down the street. "I've got a bone to pick with you."

"Have fun." Tamaki told me before he left. I turned to face Kyoya, now that I hadn't been spending every day with him I realised just how much weight he had put on thanks to the Kälteen bars.

"Do you want to explain to me who you think you are?" he asked. "I practically invented you so what the hell do you think you're doing?" I opened my mouth to attempt an answer but another, much louder and angrier voice shouted over the noise to me.

"You dirty little liar." Hikaru shouted. I turned to see him leaning out of a car sun roof, Kaoru trying to wiggle out as well. I ran over to the car.

"I'm sorry!" I yelled up to them. "I can't explain!"

"Explain what?" Hikaru asked. "How you'd rather hang out with him for a night than spend a few hours with us?"

"Hikaru we cannot stop this car." Kaoru told him. "We have a curfew."

"I had no idea this was even happening." I told him. "They all just showed up at my house unexpected and I'm the one supposed to be pretending to be a Host!" Now that I was outside in the cold air I was feeling much more sober.

"Hey buddy you're not pretending anymore." Hikaru told me. "You're are a genuine, moulded, through and through Host."

"Curfew one am," Kaoru said pulling on his sleeve. "It is now one ten!"

"Did you have an awesome time?" Hikaru asked spitefully. "Did you drink awesome drinks and listen to awesome music and then just sit around and soak up each other's awesomeness?"

"You're the one who made me like this!" I shouted letting the fact that I was hurt and a little bit drunk control what was coming out of my mouth. "You're the one who practically begged me to do this so you could use me for your Middle School revenge."

"God!" Hikaru exclaimed. "At lest Kyoya and I know that we're mean. You try to act like you're so innocent but the 'doe-eyed Bambi watching his mother get shot' routine only goes so far Haruhi."

"Guys I think you should both take some time to calm down." Kaoru said but me and Hikaru were going for it. The gloves had come off and we were going to fight this one out till the end.

"You know what?" I put my hands up and began to walk away. "You two go back to whatever it is that you have going on between each other. I'm out."

"What are you implying?" Hikaru snarled.

"Oh no he didn't!" Kaoru exclaimed. Even he looked shocked by what I had just said. In all honesty I knew that that was bellow the belt but, again, hurt and drunk.

"See this is the thing with you Hosts; you think you can get away with saying whatever you want and everyone will follow you blindly. Mori and Honey have stopped listening to Kyoya and so has Tamaki and Kyoya literally has no one to blame but himself for this, so why are you still messing with him Haruhi?"

"I..." That floored me. I had no answer. I should have stopped this months ago but I didn't and now everything was exploding in my face.

"I'll tell you why," Hikaru said. "because you're a dick and you're turning into him! Let's go Kaoru." He climbed back into the car. Kaoru looked at me, sighed and shook his head before climbing back into the car. I watched as it drove away. I felt as if the entire world was crashing in around me. I felt like crying but I didn't want to do it out in public.

"Hey I still want to talk to you." Kyoya snapped coming up from behind me. I sighed. There is literally no way that this night could get any worse.

"Kyoya-Sempai those Kälteen bars make you fat." I stated and walked away.

"Mother fu..." I heard Kyoya shout as I left. I made my way through the rest of the party not caring if I had just made Kyoya my worst enemy and that some fitting form of revenge would come swiftly. When I got to my room I locked myself inside and cried and waited for everyone else to go home so I could be alone.


	17. A Dish Best Served Burning

**Another little filler chapter for the weekend - it's been an insane week so it's nice to have a little time off, hope you all enjoy :D**

On Monday morning I was called into the Head Teacher's office. I already had a feeling that this was going to be bad but when I saw Kyoya walking down the corridor towards me I could figure out exactly what was going to happen. He smirked at me as I passed and I knew this was his revenge for me telling him about the Kälteen bars. I'll give him his dues, he doesn't mess around. I knocked on Miss Duval's door.

"In here Mr Fujioka." she said as she opened the door wider. I saw three seats in front of her desk, the other two already filled with Honey and Mori both of whom looked very nervous and not sure why they were there.

"Take a seat Mr Fujioka." Miss Duval said gesturing to the empty chair as she sat down behind her desk. I sat down and waited while she pulled out 'The Burn Book' from beneath her desk. I laughed internally to myself. I knew it would be some kind of stunt like this that Kyoya would pull. "Now," she said looking up at us all. "have any of you ever seen this before?"

"No!" Mori said immediately. I shot him a look that I hoped said 'shut up' before turning to Miss Duval.

"Yes, I have seen it." I told her. "It's not mine though."

"You three had better get your story straight, Mr Fujioka, because I am not messing around here."

"It's not ours, it's Kyoya's." Mori stated. "He's trying to make it look like we wrote it but really, he wrote it."

"Really?" Miss Duval said incredulously. She flipped through a few pages and turned it around to show us. "This is your handwriting, isn't it Mr Morinozuka?"

"Oh..."

"Also is this true?" Miss Duval asked turning the book back around. "Yamazaki Shuzo made our with Coach Car? Because that is a serious allegation if you still want to make it."

"I swear this is all Kyoya's doing." Mori said.

"Mr Morinozuka why would Mr Ootori refer to himself as a 'dickless stick'?" Miss Duval asked turning the book around again. This time to a picture of Kyoya, the words scrawled next to him. Nice touch, I thought, wouldn't do to not be in there himself if he was trying to frame us for the whole thing. Honey left out a soft giggle. Miss Duval turned on him.

"Mr Haninozuka this is no laughing matter." she said and Honey looked down at the floor. "Now we're going to get to the bottom of this right now."

"Maybe we're not in that book because everybody likes us." Mori offered. "And I don't want to be punished for being well liked."

"Do any of you have anything else you want to say?" she asked.

"I can't answer anymore questions until I have a lawyer present." Mori stated.

"Thank you Mr Morinozuka we've had quite enough from from you." Miss Duval replied. "Mr Haninozuka?"

"Whoever wrote it probably didn't think anyone would ever see it." Honey offered. That was one of the smartest, well thought out things I'd heard him say yet.

"I hope that nobody else ever does see it." Miss Duval said. "Now, here's what we're going to do..." She was cut off by Mr Norbury practically throwing the door open.

"Miss Duval, we need you." he panted.

"I'm in a meeting here." she said calmly.

"I can see that but we need you outside." he said again. "The boys have gone crazy!"

Miss Duval left the office with Mr Norbury. Mori and Honey looked at me before the three of us crept to the door and out of the office. I was not prepared for what I saw in the corridor. The corridor was filled with boys from all years of the school fighting with each other shouting obscenities and variants of 'you told someone'. I stared in confusion and then I looked down and saw a piece of paper on the ground. I picked it up and saw that it was a page from 'The Burn Book', this one reading 'Ishio Yoshiteru has crabs'.

It was full on madness and it wasn't going away. I looked down the corridor and at the end of it saw Kyoya smirking as he surveyed his handiwork. I really had to fight the urge to run up to him and join the fight myself. I was about to when Hikaru, Kaoru and another boy walked passed all holding pages from the book.

"'Kawasaki Shusake masturbates with a frozen hotdog'." the boy I didn't know read. "Oh my god that was one time.

"'Hikaru Hitachiin: incest freak'." Hikaru scoffed. "That's original."

"Hey! 'To gay to function'!" Kaoru cried.

"That's only okay when I say it!" Hikaru replied. I tried to shrink back into the wall but Miss Duval appeared at that moment looking flustered.

"Oh hell no!" she muttered to herself. "I did not leave America for this!" She smashed the glass of the fire alarm next to the door. The alarm filled the hall making most of the fights stop as people covered their ears and the sprinklers turned on so anyone still fighting was broken apart by that.

"Oh crap, this was a new blazer!" I heard one boy cry mournfully.

"All boy report to the gymnasium immediately!" Miss Duval shouted over the confusion. "Immediately!" Slowly everyone in the corridor began to disperse and make their way over to the gymnasium. With a sinking feeling in my stomach I followed.


	18. Attitudes And Apologies

**Thought I might as well upload this before I head off to work today as I don't know how much time I'll have when I'm done (T.T ten hours of people complaining) anyway hope you enjoy it and spot the cameo in the middle :p**

Have you ever walked up to a group of people and realised that they were just talking about you? Have you ever had it happen fourteen times in a row? I have. As I walked into that gymnasium every single group of people that I walked past turned to stare at me and you didn't have to be a genius to work out why. Because there had been no pictures of me littered around the school from 'The Burn Book' I was a prime suspect and public enemy number one.

I found one empty seat halfway through the crowd and sat down in it. The people on either side didn't look too impressed but I decided to ignore then and just kept to myself. I watched as Miss Duval, Mr Norbury and a few other members of staff talked at the front before sitting down and Miss Duval addressed us.

"Never in all my years as an educator have I seen such behaviour." she said. "And from well to do young men. I have parents calling me asking if somebody was killed. I ought to cancel the Ouran Fair."

"Who cares?" a voice I recognised yelled from the back amid the groans and pleas for her to reconsider.

"Hitachiin, I know you're voice but I don't know which one of you it is, both of you see me afterwards." she snapped.

"Thanks a lot Hikaru." Kaoru yelled.

"Now," Miss Duval continued, ignoring them both. "I'm not going to do that because we've already paid for it but don't think I'm not taking this 'Burn Book' seriously. Coach Carr has fled school properly and Mr Norbury has been accused of keeping Class A drugs in his desk. Now, what you boys need is an attitude readjustment and you're going to get it right now. I don't care how long it takes I will keep you here all night."

"We can't keep them past four." another one of the teachers piped up.

"I will keep you here till four." Miss Duval corrected. "What we're going to try to do is fix the way that you young men relate to each other. Man to man. Does anyone have a specifically male issue that they would like to discuss." One boy at the front put his hand up.

"Somebody wrote in that book that I'm lying about being straight because they found an anal plug in my bag but I had a really important test that day that I couldn't miss and a bad case of stress induced diarrhoea." Miss Duval stared at him for a moment before shaking her head.

"Yeah I can't do this." she said. "Mr Norbury please take over." Mr Norbury gave her a look that said 'thanks for that' and got to his feet.

"Okay so from what I can gather a lot of you have been saying things about each other in the heat of the moment while not checking if you facts are true." he said. "This is how rumours get started and how people get into trouble and then get upset. If you have a problem with someone you need to talk to them directly and have a civilised conversation about what is bothering you, not talking to someone else about it and saying things you might regret while you're angry."

"Can I just say," Kyoya said standing up. "we don't have a rumour problem at this school and some of us shouldn't have to be here because some of us are just the victims in this situation."

"That's probably true." Mr Norbury said. "How many of you have ever felt personally victimised by Kyoya Ootori?" Pretty much ever single person in the gymnasium (including most of the teachers sitting at the front) raised their hands. Kyoya sat down, looking moody. "Right I have a brand new exercise for you..."

* * *

Mr Norbury had us write out an apology to the people that we'd spread rumours about and that we'd said horrible things to. We then had to fall backwards into the crowd of the rest of the students who, in theory, would catch us. It was a sincerity and trust exercise and I really wasn't looking forward to it – the amount of death glares I had been getting I was sure that they were going to let me fall to the floor.

"Takashi," Honey said as he stood on the small make-shift stage. "I'm sorry I laughed at you that time you got diarrhoea when we went to Kyoto. And I'm sorry I told everyone about it. And I'm sorry for repeating it now." He turned and fell backwards into the crowd with a giggle, who caught him. A boy with hair gelled up into the shape of a star and a star tattoo on his right shoulder, with tears practically streaming down his face took to the stage next.

"I wish we could all just get along like we used to in middle school." he sobbed. "I wish that I could bake a cake made out of rainbows and smiles and we'd all eat it and be happy."

"He doesn't even go here!" Kaoru yelled from the back.

"Do you even go to this school?" Mr Norbury asked.

"No," the boy sobbed. "I just have a lot of feelings."

"Okay, go home." Mr Norbury told him and he sobbed his way off the stage. "See doesn't this feel so much better, getting this all off your chest? Who's next?" Hikaru stepped up to the stage already looking as if he was on edge.

"Oh my god, it's his dream come true," Kyoya said loud enough for Hikaru to hear but not loud enough for the teachers to hear. "diving into a big pile of boys with his brother at the front." Hikaru snorted with derisive laughter.

"Okay, I've got an apology." he said putting his written one into his blazer pocket. "So I have this friend who is new this year and I convince him that it would be fun to mess up Kyoya Ootori's life. So I convinced him to pretend to be friends with Kyoya and then he would come over to my house afterwards and me, him and Kaoru would just laugh about all the dumb stuff Kyoya and the others would say. Haruhi, you know my friend Haruhi, gave him these candy bar things that made him gain weight, we rigged his bathroom scales so he wouldn't notice, and we turned all of his best friends against him. Oh and we gave him foot cream instead of face wash."

"What?" Kyoya turned to stare at me along with everyone else in the room.

"God! I am so sorry Kyoya." Hikaru said even though he clearly wasn't. "Really, I don't know why I did it. I guess it's because I've got such a big homosexual crush on both you and my brother. Suck on that!" Hikaru whooped as he stuck both of his middle fingers up at Kyoya, turned and fell backwards into the crowd. The crowd caught him, chanting his name and carrying him around the gymnasium in a lap of honour. Kyoya on the other hand was stalking out of the building. I ran after him. I needed to make this right.

"Kyoya-Sempai please wait!" I called. "I never meant for that to happen." Kyoya turned to face me.

"What to find out that everyone hates me?" Kyoya asked sarcastically. "I really don't care. Do you know what everyone says abut you? They say that you're a super smart scholarship freak who is a less hot version of me. You can take that fake apology of yours and shove it right up your..."

Kyoya never got to finish his sentence as at that moment a school bus came tearing round the corner and slammed into him. One of the teachers from the crowd that I was sure had formed behind us screamed while all I could do was stare. And that is how Kyoya Ootori died.


	19. Making Amends The Hard Way

**Just a little short chapter for your Christmas Eve, hope you enjoy it and I hope you all have an amazing Christmas 3**

I'm totally kidding. Kyoya didn't die but he did get hurt quite badly. Some of the boys say that they saw his head go all the way around like in the exorcist but that was just a rumour. Some people swear that they saw me push him in front of the bus. That was an even worse rumour. It was getting to the point where I had no idea what to do and I felt like I had no one to turn to – I had lost all my friends and my father was at work – so I turned to the shrine we had for my mother in the corner of my father's room.

"What have I done Mum." I sighed. "I was supposed to try and make friends at this new place instead I ended up getting in the middle of a fight and making things worse. Now I've pushed away everyone who I could have been friends with and I don't know how to put things right. What am I going to do?"

I felt someone sit down next to me and saw my dad, who had obviously just finished work. I quickly wiped a hand over my face so he wouldn't know that I had been crying. He put his arm around my shoulder and I leaned against his chest.

"So how bad is it going to be tomorrow?" he asked.

"Bad." I replied.

"I can call them up first thing and tell them you're ill or something?" he suggested. I shook my head.

"No, the only thing worse than going back will be not going back at all." I said.

"Well maybe take this time to just focus on your studies for a little while. You're still an excellent student, right?"

"Yeah." I sighed. "I just wish there was something I could do to make it right."

"I'm sure you'll think of something." he said. "For now, if it would make you feel any better, you can be... what do they call it: grounded."

"You know what? That does make me feel a little better."

* * *

The next day at school was one of the worst I have ever had at Ouran. It was like my first day again and no one would talk to me or look at me unless it was to sneer. I ate lunch by myself in the third floor music room again and only spoke when a teacher asked me a direct question. I thought things couldn't get any worse until I saw Miss Duval and a police officer standing at the front of Mr Norbury's class.

"What's going on?" I whispered to Tamaki as I sat down. "Where's Mr Norbury?"

"Did your teacher ever try to sell you marijuana or Ecstasy tablets?" Miss Duval asked the class.

"What are marijuana tablets?" I heard Renge ask.

"Were you ever aware of you teacher having said drugs on his person while at school?" Miss Duval asked.

"Miss Duvel," Tamaki raised his hand. "this is ridiculous. Mr Norbury doesn't sell drugs and he doesn't keep them in his desk."

"I know Mr Suoh," Miss Duval sighed. "but after the allegations about Coach Carr turned out to be extremely true the school board felt that it would be best if we investigated every claim made in that 'Burn Book'."

"That book was written by a bunch of idiots who make up rumours because they're bored with their own pathetic lives." Tamaki stated.

"Well unless someone wants to come forward and say that they made the whole thing up this is how we have to handle it." Miss Duval said matter-of-factly. And there it was. That was how I was going to make up for all the awful things that I had done. Sorry Tamaki, you're going to hate me forever. I stood up.

"Miss Duval," I said and everyone in the room turned to stare at me. I took a deep breath. "I wrote it." I couldn't look at anyone apart from Miss Duval. There was no way I was going to looked down and see the hatred and disgust on Tamaki's face so I continued to stare forward. Miss Duval sighed.

"Come with me Mr Fujioka." she said. I made my way to the front of the class and followed her to her office.


	20. Sucking Out The Poison

**Merry Christmas guys, hope you've all had an amazing day, love to you all 3**

A strange Australian man who used to poke deadly animals with sticks said that when you get bitten by a snake you're supposed to suck the poison out. That is what I had to do: suck all the poison out of my life. I started with Kyoya who was the living proof that the more people are scared of you the more flowers you will get after a near death experience. Ironically Kyoya had lost so much weight from being on just an IV that the doctors had prescribed him Kälteen bars to boost his weight. That hadn't gone down too well. Then there was Mr Norbury who was the living proof that no good deed goes unpunished.

"Oh hey do you want to buy some drugs?" he asked me sarcastically when I went to hand in my work the next afternoon he was at school.

"I'm just done with my work." I told him. He took my paper and began to mark it there and then.

"I've just got to say that watching the police search my house for drugs really was top of my list of fantastic things that have happened to me this year." he said still being horrifically sarcastic. I deserved this so I stood there silently and took it. "So how much trouble did you get in for telling the truth?"

"Just... a lot." I replied.

"Well you didn't write that whole book yourself – you barely know half of the students in it and some of those picture date back a good few years – did you tell Miss Duval who else did it?" he asked.

"No because I'm trying this new thing where I go back to not talking about people behind their backs." I replied.

"Because getting hit by a bus is a pretty good punishment on it's own." Tamaki stated as he dropped off his own work. Mr Norbury handed me back my paper and Tamaki saw the grade on the top.

"Well done Nerd." he said before going back to his desk. There was a small ring off affection in there and I was just glad that he was finally talking to me again.

"Thank you." I called after him. I turned back to Mr Norbury. "Anyway I'm sorry."

"I forgive you." he replied after a longer pause than I was comfortable with. "But as my own personal brand of punishment I've figured out how you're going to make it up to me." He grinned evilly and gestured his head to the side of his desk. I looked and saw Renge standing there. She smirked at me.

"What's up Cherry-Blossom?"

* * *

I stood behind my podium at the Inter-Schools Debating Final feeling as if I was going to vomit. I had agreed that I would take part in this match that could actually win our school the title (apparently) and now I was really regretting it. It didn't help that just after I told my father where I was going and left the house I heard him remind himself that I was supposed to be grounded and therefore not allowed to leave the house. I was distracted by Renge coming to stand at her podium beside mine.

"You nervous Cherry-Blossom?" she asked.

"Yes." I replied.

"Don't be." she told me. "You got this." I smiled at her.

"Thanks."

"No problem." she smiled back. "Besides we've got a great turn out this year." I looked out into the practically empty auditorium.

"Renge there are, like, ten people here!" I observed.

"Yep." Renge agreed. "Great turn out."

 **Great turn out... haha things can only get better from here right?**


	21. Master Debating

**Another lil short chapter for your Boxing Day, hope you're all having a lovely holiday :D another cameo in here (although this one I had to Google because I've never seen that particular anime) enjoy**

The debate got underway and I instantly saw how rusty I had become by not joining earlier in the year. I really should have done – note to self; next time don't let people convince you into not doing something you want to. Or convincing you into something you don't want to do. Or just not letting people convince you of anything. Good plan. Everyone was speaking so quickly that I was finding it a little hard to keep up but I just about managed it.

"Okay," the question master finally said bringing the current argument to a close. "after six rounds of competitive debate, we have a tie. In the event of a tie, we move into a sudden-death round. Each team is given the opportunity to choose their opponent."

"We pick Wako Agemaki." Renge said indicating the shy looking girl who had been staring at me like she was in love all evening.

"From Southern Cross Academy Miss Wako Agemaki. And from Ouran?"

"We pick the boy on the end." one of them said.

"And from Ouran Academy Mr Fujioka Haruhi."

"Hang on!" I exclaimed. I had only been half listening at this point and the sound of my own name jarred me back to reality. "That's me!"

"Contestants will you please step up to the podium." the question master said and Renge had to practically shove me over to the podium that had been placed in the centre. It was probably obvious that I was shaking as I stood facing Wako Agemaki and waiting for the question. "Contestants are you ready?" the question master asked.

"Yes." Wako Agemaki said. I just nodded in response. The question master picked up his final card.

"'You can only find true happiness when you learn to be happy within yourself' Discuss." the question master said beaming at us. I stood there stumped. How on earth was I going to answer this question – I hadn't been happy with myself all year! I looked over at Wako Agemaki. This may have been the influence of spending so much time with Kyoya but she really could have stood to have a different hair cut and maybe put on some different clothing.

And that's when I realised: making observations like that about Wako Agemaki wouldn't make me feel better about myself and it wouldn't stop her from beating me in this contest. Calling somebody else fat won't make you any skinnier – you have to work for it. Calling someone stupid doesn't make you any smarter and ruining Kyoya's life definitely didn't make me any happier with my own, in fact it made me much more miserable because that's not the kind of person that I usually am. I let all of my principals go and over what? Nothing really. All you can do in life is keep going and try to solve the problems in front of you as they come. So I opened my mouth and began to say just that.

* * *

I stood outside with Mr Norbury, Renge and the rest of the Debating Club. I had done it. I had managed to talk my opponent down and had won us the championship. We were all talking excitedly as Renge was pulling jackets out of the boot of Mr Norbury's car and handing them out to each of us. They were very similar to American Letterman jackets with each of our initials on the front and Ouran Debating Club on the back.

"We are going to look so kick-ass in these when we roll up the Fair." Renge said pulling hers on.

"Oh I not going." I said shrugging. The others all groaned in protest.

"Cherry Blossom this is your night." Renge told me. "Don't let the haters top you from doing your thang."

"Did you just say 'thang'?" I asked grinning. Mr Norbury gave me comforting smile and placed his hand on my shoulder.

"Haruhi, you don't have to punish yourself forever." he said.

"I know," I replied. "but I'm supposed to be grounded." Mr Norbury shrugged.

"You're already out." he stated.

"Good point." I replied. Renge whooped with delight and bundled me into the back of Mr Norbury's car. It was a bit of a squeeze but once everyone was in Mr Norbury started the engine and drove us back to school. I looked relatively calm on the outside but inside my stomach was like a washing machine.


	22. Princely Revelations

**So I just thought fuck it - I'm so close to the end of the story and so close to the end of the year that a chapter a day for the next couple of days so enjoy :D**

When we got back to school it was completely packed, there were people everywhere. I hadn't even realised there were this many students at the school and it seemed as if there were quite a few parents that had been brought along to join in the festivities. I had gotten separated from Renge and the others pretty much as soon as we had gotten back and I was wandering around for someone I vaguely recognised when I stumbled past Miss Duval. She was talking to someone I realised, with a slightly sinking feeling, was my father.

"She's supposed to be grounded," he was saying. "but I accidentally let her out." Miss Duval narrowed her eyes at him.

"I have absolutely no idea who your daughter is." she replied. Okay this conversation was going to raise more questions than it was going to answer so I thought it was best if I hurried away from it. I dived into the nearest bathroom where I found Kyoya trying to adjust his tie with great difficulty considering the contraption he was forced to wear while his injuries healed.

"Need a hand?" I asked. He looked over at me, opened his mouth to say something and then closed it as if he thought better of it.

"Sure." he said. I went over and straightened up his tie.

"You look great." I told him.

"I'm wearing a spinal halo." he replied flatly.

"I'm sorry about the bus." I said. "I feel like that was my fault."

"Why?" he asked smirking slightly. "Did you plan the timetable down to the exact second? Stop trying to make this about you, I'm the one that got hit by a bus."

"I know," I replied. "but I'm sorry about the other stuff too."

"I'm going to forgive you because I am a very Zen person," Kyoya told me. "and I am on a lot of pain medication right now."

"Thanks." I grinned.

"I'm sorry about everything that happened with Tamaki though." Kyoya said after a pause. "I know you and he were quite good friends. He was always talking about how unusual you were. It pissed me off quite a lot."

"I wouldn't worry too much on that front." I told him. "I messed that one up myself – I didn't need anyone's help for that." Kyoya was about to respond when his mother stuck her head around the door.

"Kyoya they're announcing the nominations for Prince of the Fair soon." she told him.

"Hi Mrs Ootori." I said giving her a small wave.

"Hi Haruhi, I haven't seen you in ages!" she exclaimed. "Don't you look so cute in your little jacket."

"Thanks." I replied blushing.

"I'll be out in a minute." Kyoya told her.

"Okay." she replied and retracted her head from the door. Kyoya groaned.

"Can you believe my effing mother is here?" he asked.

"I think it's nice she's here to support you." I said. Kyoya chuckled softly.

"That's just you all over." he stated. "Let's go." I followed him out of the bathroom and over to the stage where Miss Duval was standing with the nominees for Prince and Princess of the fair. A girl who's name I did know was already wearing a tiara. Kyoya joined the other nominees on stage and I waited in the crowd, momentarily forgetting that I was also supposed to be up on stage as well.

"Right before we crown the Prince of the Fair," Miss Duval said. "I just wanted to say that you're all winners today and I could not be happier that this school year is ending. So without further ado," she said opening the golden envelope she was holding. " your Prince of the Fair and future co-chair of the Student Activities Board is Fujioka Haruhi."

"Oh lord." I muttered to myself as everyone turned to stare at me.

"Come on up here Mr Fujioka." Miss Duval said and someone (probably Renge or Kaoru) gave me a shove in the direction of the stage. I slowly made my way up on to the stage and stood next to Miss Duval who placed an ornate looking crown on my head.

"Thanks." I said before taking it off and looking at it. I sighed. Now was the right time to finally tell the truth and completely make a fresh start. I looked up at the crowd. "So half the people in this room hate me and the other half only like me because they think I pushed someone in front of a bus. So that's not good."

"You know it's really not required for you to make a speech." Miss Duval said to me.

"I'm almost done, I swear." I told her before turning back to the crowd. "To all the people whose feelings got hurt by the 'Burn Book' I'm so sorry. You know, I've never been to one of these things before and when I think about how many people wanted this and how many people spent hours agonising over it. I mean I think everybody here looks like royalty tonight – look at Kyoya-Sempai; he fractured his spine and he still looks like a rock star."

"You know most people just take the crown and go." Miss Duval said.

"Just one more thing." I told her. I turned back to the crowd. "For the entire year I have been pretending to be something I'm not and I'm tired of it so no more lies, no more hiding from who I really am." I unzipped my jacket and undid the buttons on my school shirt. Everyone's eyes were on me as I opened my shirt and revealed the small amount of bust they could see now that I was just in a vest. Everyone stared, some open mouthed, there were a few flashes from camera phones and the entire crowd went silent before Miss Duval seemed to come back to herself.

"Okay well we're going to wrap things up here." she said standing in front of me. "Everyone have a great time and enjoy the fair!" She turned to me, her face grim, and I chuckled nervously. "A word, Fujioka."

 **Oh Haruhi you in trouble now...**


	23. Happy Endings All Round

**So the fall out from exposing yourself to an entire student body could be worse :D we're getting very near the end now so I hope you enjoy this**

The telling off I got from Miss Duval wasn't as bad as it could have been when I calmly pointed out that all the information was right there in my file but no one had bother to check up on it. They had just seen the short hair and boyish physique and assumed male. She couldn't fault me for that but politely asked me not to expose myself at a school function again and let me go on my way. I was going to wander through the fair until I found someone I knew but discovered that the twins were waiting for me outside her office.

"Hi." I said giving them both an awkward smile. "Are we still in a fight?"

"Are you still a dick?" Hikaru asked.

"I don't think so." I replied. He grinned.

"Then I guess we're okay." he said and pulled me into a hug. Kaoru joined the hug too, letting out a little squeal of delight.

"And kudos on flashing in front of the entire school." Kaoru said.

"Yeah and only a few people too photos, I don't think anyone actually filmed the whole thing." Hikaru stated. Kaoru pulled out his phone.

"Guilty." he laughed. I rolled my eyes and gave him a playful punch on the arm.

"Please don't put that on YouTube." I asked him. He grinned sheepishly. "You already did, didn't you?"

"Guilty." he said again. I sighed and shook my head.

"Come on," I said. "let's go dance or something." It was like our first day again – me and the twins walking out of the school and onto the field. It felt so good especially now that they knew the truth about me. We were just going to one of the stall serving food when Kaoru nudged me in the ribs.

"Man candy, ten o'clock." he said. I turned and saw Tamaki walking towards us. He caught my eye and he smiled at me. Kaoru saw this and gave me a gentle shove in his direction.

"Hi." I said shyly when I reached him.

"That was really brave, what you did up there." he said.

"Thank you." I replied.

"Maybe don't flash the whole school next time." he grinned. I laughed.

"It wasn't that bad." I said. "Besides there won't be a next time it's already on YouTube if people want a repeat performance."

"Oh dear." he laughed. "Congratulations on willing your championship by the way."

"Thank you." I smiled. "I was so nervous, I thought I was going to be sick."

"How's your stomach now?" he asked.

"It's fine." I replied.

"Do you feel nauseous at all?"

"No."

"Have you been drinking?"

"No." I laughed.

"Ok." he smiled. "Grool." He led me out onto a huge laminated square that had been set up as a dance floor. He wrapped an arm around my waist and ran his fingers through my hair before leaning down and kissing me. It felt just as good as the last time. Feeling Tamaki's lips on mine was amazing and I didn't want it to end. We were only broken apart when a loud exclamation from Hikaru made us both look round.

"Kaoru what the hell?!" he yelled. I turned and saw Hikaru looking horrified and Kaoru looking apologetic.

"I'm sorry!" he cried throwing his hands up in defence. "I was watching them and I was in the moment." Hikaru looked at him in disgust.

"Well don't be, Jesus!" he exclaimed before trying to shake off when had just happened. I caught Kaoru's eye and we both started laughing. Hikaru shot a glare my way but turned as Renge tapped him on the shoulder.

"What's up?" she said.

"Can I help you?" he asked. She ruffled his hair.

"I'm liking the red Red." she told him. Kaoru gave Hikaru a gentle nudge in her direction and she dragged him onto the dance floor. I turned back to Tamaki, wrapped my arms around his neck, reached up on my tip-toes and kissed him again.


	24. Epilogue

**I really could have put this on the end of the last chapter but, hey ho, I didn't haha anyway this is just a little epilogue to clear up all the lose ends. Hope you all enjoyed the story, thank you so much for putting up with my insanity. Until next time :D**

In case you're wondering The Hosts broke up. Much like everyone else they were surprised tto find out that I was actually a girl, although Kyoya said it made a few things make a lot more sense. Honey said that he already knew... but I don't think he really knew what I was talking about on account of the fact that he said he saw it online.

Kyoya's spine healed and his physical therapist taught him to channel all his rage into sports. It was perfect because the jock boys weren't afraid of him. Honey and Mori graduated. Honey used his special talents to do the morning weather announcements for the city while training at his family's martial arts dojo. Mori slept for three week before pretty much doing the same. Both of them came back to visit occasionally.

Tamaki and I officially became a couple now that the air had been cleared and he spent time with me and the twins. Hikaru and Renge had started seeing each other; it was adorable, if a little creepy when their kisses became a little too heated in front of the rest of us. Kaoru also found love in a way that none of us had expected; Glen Coco the American exchange student who very rarely said anything and the six of us spent a lot of time together outside of school too.

And me? I had gone from Scholarship Student, to Host, to the most hated person in the school, to actual human being, to just me. All the drama from last year just wasn't important anymore. School used to be like a shark tank but now I could just float. I had finally found some much needed balance in my life.

The End


End file.
